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Bullshit: isn't incredibly impactful. Short low speed trips in city centers by electric vehicles have marginal contribution to global emissions. What's really

Bullshit: isn't incredibly impactful. Short low speed trips in city centers by electric vehicles have marginal contribution to global emissions. What's really motivating policies like this is an aesthetic aversion to cars from a few loud people who think they can socially engineer a beautiful shining future for humanity whether we want it or not. I like cars. I'm perfectly happy to talk about emissions, but I'm not willing to give up my car on some new urbanist's say-so. You're right about one thing though: we should all expect a lot more of this top down meddling with our lives.

FriskyAlter 6y ago
You may like cars but you're not entitled to public spaces to park it. And without those, you may find that owning a car is rather cumbersome.
- pfortuny 6y ago
  He is not entitled but (at least in my country) you pay a tax to be able to drive it (where the car is registered), so probably not "entitlement" but some right he does have.
  - ajmadesc 6y ago
    But does that tax levied on that car / maintenance expenses cover the costs of road maintenance, excess utility infrastructure from the sprawl that driving infrastructure incentivises, negative health and environmental externalities. I highly highly doubt it.
- quotemstr 6y ago
  I'd be perfectly happy paying for the public space my car occupies. I'm a fan of congestion charges and tolling every road. But bans on cars altogether? No way in hell.
  - lkbm 6y ago
    Has anyone mentioned banning cars here? I know people talk about it — I talk about it, semi-seriously — but I don't see any comments here mentioning banning cars (except yours), and it's not in the article.
cantankerous 6y ago
I'd posit that adding a bunch of parking to a city center is also "meddling" in the lives of people who live in the city center.
0xB31B1B 6y ago
Electric cars are still extremely polluting. Tire and break dust is the majority of pm 2.5 particulate pollution in US cities and there is a growing body of research that shows reducing these emissions is a huge impact on our general cognitive ability and happiness (particulate air pollution makes us statistically significantly dumber). As with anything, I’m pretty happy with allowing what the market will support. Accurately pricing parking and making people pay the market rate for parking will drastically reduce car use. This is the plan is Paris (reducing free parking) We don’t need to ban cars, we just need to stop subsidizing them.
- chungus_khan 6y ago
  There are also hidden costs in roads being clogged up with personal cars slowing commercial traffic.
- quotemstr 6y ago
  These goalposts are moving at light speed. You'll always be able to find some negative effect of cars. What annoys me about new urbanist types is that they're so dogmatically anti-car that they won't even acknowledge the positives
NoOneNew 6y ago
The thing that isn't talked about is the function of a personal vehicle. A car is a major contributing factor to personal freedom. You are able to travel short to long distances on YOUR schedule, not someone else's. The biggest issue with a lot of public transpo is the lack of freedom. You dont travel when convenient to you and you dont get taken to exactly where you want to go. This of course has its pros that go with the cons, both environmental and cost (cost to a degree, not all public transport is created equal and I have a big problem with considering it savings if you spend 1.5 hours round trip to do a 30 min round trip commute, but that's a slightly different topic). When people argue for the rights of cars, they are really talking about their own personal rights to large movement (grocery shopping is far easier with a car than by public transpo and foot as a quick example). And as the caveat, yes I do believe we need to take steps to solving our pollution generation. In the same breath, I dont believe in taking away personal freedoms or independent abilities. Paris is literally an archaic city. The design is archaic and what city planners have to deal with are hacks due to legacy design. Then again, French culture is rather archaic as well. They still refuse to adopt loaner words as an example, something the rest of the world has been doing for the past few hundred years at least. Using them as a poster child for what the rest of the modern world should do to fix pollution problems is like trusting an Italian engineering firm to build a bridge... it's going to collapse :P Add to that, banning anything is a very buercratical answer to a complex problem. Tell me the last time banning/prohibition has worked well and never had 2nd or 3rd order severe consequences. Historical speaking, they're pulling ideas out of their ass and are going to regret this decision regardless if its "for the greater good".
- bluGill 6y ago
  A good public transport system is more convenient than a car. I see kids as young as 10 (maybe younger but I haven't seen it) riding my local city bus system alone - compare that to the other parents who drive their kids to school. When the public transport system goes where you want about when you want it is really nice to not have to drive. Most people have never experienced a good transport system. Even in Europe most have not. Paris is good for some people, but not even everyone in Paris. It is even worse in the US.
- avianlyric 6y ago

FriskyAlter 6y ago

You may like cars but you're not entitled to public spaces to park it. And without those, you may find that owning a car is rather cumbersome.

pfortuny 6y ago
He is not entitled but (at least in my country) you pay a tax to be able to drive it (where the car is registered), so probably not "entitlement" but some right he does have.
- ajmadesc 6y ago
  But does that tax levied on that car / maintenance expenses cover the costs of road maintenance, excess utility infrastructure from the sprawl that driving infrastructure incentivises, negative health and environmental externalities. I highly highly doubt it.
quotemstr 6y ago
I'd be perfectly happy paying for the public space my car occupies. I'm a fan of congestion charges and tolling every road. But bans on cars altogether? No way in hell.
- lkbm 6y ago
  Has anyone mentioned banning cars here? I know people talk about it — I talk about it, semi-seriously — but I don't see any comments here mentioning banning cars (except yours), and it's not in the article.

cantankerous 6y ago

I'd posit that adding a bunch of parking to a city center is also "meddling" in the lives of people who live in the city center.

0xB31B1B 6y ago

Electric cars are still extremely polluting. Tire and break dust is the majority of pm 2.5 particulate pollution in US cities and there is a growing body of research that shows reducing these emissions is a huge impact on our general cognitive ability and happiness (particulate air pollution makes us statistically significantly dumber). As with anything, I’m pretty happy with allowing what the market will support. Accurately pricing parking and making people pay the market rate for parking will drastically reduce car use. This is the plan is Paris (reducing free parking) We don’t need to ban cars, we just need to stop subsidizing them.

chungus_khan 6y ago
There are also hidden costs in roads being clogged up with personal cars slowing commercial traffic.
quotemstr 6y ago
These goalposts are moving at light speed. You'll always be able to find some negative effect of cars. What annoys me about new urbanist types is that they're so dogmatically anti-car that they won't even acknowledge the positives

NoOneNew 6y ago

The thing that isn't talked about is the function of a personal vehicle. A car is a major contributing factor to personal freedom. You are able to travel short to long distances on YOUR schedule, not someone else's. The biggest issue with a lot of public transpo is the lack of freedom. You dont travel when convenient to you and you dont get taken to exactly where you want to go. This of course has its pros that go with the cons, both environmental and cost (cost to a degree, not all public transport is created equal and I have a big problem with considering it savings if you spend 1.5 hours round trip to do a 30 min round trip commute, but that's a slightly different topic). When people argue for the rights of cars, they are really talking about their own personal rights to large movement (grocery shopping is far easier with a car than by public transpo and foot as a quick example). And as the caveat, yes I do believe we need to take steps to solving our pollution generation. In the same breath, I dont believe in taking away personal freedoms or independent abilities. Paris is literally an archaic city. The design is archaic and what city planners have to deal with are hacks due to legacy design. Then again, French culture is rather archaic as well. They still refuse to adopt loaner words as an example, something the rest of the world has been doing for the past few hundred years at least. Using them as a poster child for what the rest of the modern world should do to fix pollution problems is like trusting an Italian engineering firm to build a bridge... it's going to collapse :P Add to that, banning anything is a very buercratical answer to a complex problem. Tell me the last time banning/prohibition has worked well and never had 2nd or 3rd order severe consequences. Historical speaking, they're pulling ideas out of their ass and are going to regret this decision regardless if its "for the greater good".

bluGill 6y ago
A good public transport system is more convenient than a car. I see kids as young as 10 (maybe younger but I haven't seen it) riding my local city bus system alone - compare that to the other parents who drive their kids to school. When the public transport system goes where you want about when you want it is really nice to not have to drive. Most people have never experienced a good transport system. Even in Europe most have not. Paris is good for some people, but not even everyone in Paris. It is even worse in the US.
avianlyric 6y ago