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Don't Be Anti Car. Be Pro Something Else.

133 points by DoreenMichele 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
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Zambyte 5y ago
"Don't be anti X. Be pro something else" this mentality can and should be applied to all issues in my opinion. Being "pro solution" is far more productive than being "anti problem".
- ripper1138 5y ago
  Agreed. Anyone can point out a problem, some can be "pro solution", and very few actually solve problems. Unfortunate reality of the world.
- patrickwalton 5y ago
  Sometimes the solution is to get rid of the problem. Take tobacco for instance. May not be true of cars, but I'm pretty bitter about the unhealthy car-centric societies that 100 years of auto lobbying has left us with.
  - flemhans 5y ago
    Arguably a safer alternative to smoking could be part of a solution too.
- teucris 5y ago
  Okay, I am for making most cities pedestrian and bike-only zones with exceptions for delivery vehicles and carefully isolated motor vehicle routes. Do you think framing my position with a solution will really change the discussion?
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  The issue that there is no single solution to cars, and the problem is indeed cars. So unless you mean "Don't be anti cars, instead be pro-everything-else in a way that is detrimental to car operation", I have to disagree.
stefan_ 5y ago
The conservative chant, as if space in a city is not an ultimate zero-sum game. Any "pro something else" eventually butts up against having 80% of space and 110% of government drone mindshare allocated to cars.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  Sure, but I think people are generally more sympathetic to "here is something that people want and aren't getting; I'd like us to consider letting the people have some of that" (the pro-whatever angle, even if that is inevitably anti-car in implementation) than they are to "I think that cars are currently too convenient and should be made less convenient" (the anti-car angle). It's the difference between "I want this thing I don't have" (understandable/evokes empathy) versus "I don't want others to have the thing they have" (much less understandable and evokes almost no empathy).
  - adrianN 5y ago
    That just leads to the "oh yes that's a good idea, let's form a working group!" response but never leads to actual change because that would require taking space away from cars.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      Taking space/utility away from a current use that's broadly viewed as beneficial (or at least necessary) and experienced by many as a net-positive will require some level of consensus-building [and why-explaining]. I (and the article) suggested a path that I think is more likely to succeed at that necessary (if annoying) step. But if you think a more direct, anti-car strategy will work better, I'm not anti- your anti-car strategy. I'm pro "tell me what you want instead that would be better" because I think that's more likely to succeed.
drewcoo 5y ago
That's a wonderful way to divide all of the people who are anti-car into thousands of different voices shouting for different things at once. As an aside, pointing all those don'ts at the reader is awfully hypocritical.
- yellowapple 5y ago
  A unified voice without solutions is unlikely to be more effective at fixing a problem than a divided voice with solutions. That's the crux of the pro-solution argument. If anti-car folks don't want us driving cars, then we need solutions to address the various legitimate use cases of cars.
II2II 5y ago
The thing is, most of the cycling advocacy I see is pro solution yet the opposition response is largely anti problem. Those who want to ride safely typically propose infrastructure based solutions and rarely treat the automobile itself as the problem. For example: while you may see advocacy for protected lanes or traffic calming, almost no one is arguing that cars should be removed from the roads. Contrast that to the opposition response, which often seeks to have bikes removed from the roads and never supports accommodation for different modes of transportation.
- anigbrowl 5y ago
  Quite. this is nice, but the idea that 'I think you can actively try to become the hot new thing in part by working on being inoffensive' is naive. That approach works great for networking with peers but not against aggressive opposition. There are a lot of people in the world who thrive on seeing other people worse off, to a greater degree than being equivalently better off themselves. In game theory terms, they're willing to experience a loss in order to inflict a loss on others. Online they present as trolls.
  - II2II 5y ago
    I have no doubt that some people want to see others worse off. Some people seem to get angry about just about anything. Yet I suspect that most people respond negatively for other reasons. A common case is they perceive it as a loss to themselves, even when there is no justification to that perception. To choose a concrete example from pedestrian safety: curb extensions are often proposed to make crossing pedestrians more visible and to slow turning traffic. A common criticism is a loss of parking. That criticism ignores that curb extensions rarely impact parking since people are not supposed to park within a certain distance of a crosswalk.
    - jdc 5y ago
      > A common case is they perceive it as a loss to themselves, even when there is no justification to that perception. This is symptomatic of an oppositional mindset IMO.
ahoy 5y ago
"please dont present a united voice against the source of the problem. Balkanize yourselves into a dozen little groups so no change ever happens!"
- shadofx 5y ago
  Occupy Wall Street was a unified voice. Nothing was achieved because there was no clear goal.
  - hootbootscoot 5y ago
    And Tiannamen was crushed, but one still has to try, as the watershed moment or breaking point can come in the blink of an eye. It's my view that Occupy was dismantled by the vested interests it confronted, in the form of paid editorial hit jobs, much as anything that threatens large hegemonies of power. The goal was simple and achieved: awareness of how Wall Street gambling led to the global economic crisis of 2007 and 8 It was ahead of it's time, and will later be seen as such. What is puzzling to me is how easily that anti-elite message was hijacked by Trumpkins and his elitest of silver-spooned back-scratching politics, which certainly goes against the spirit of Occupy. The takeaway is that there is a public for anti-elite messaging, but that it's now possible to weaponize that in order to innoculate that very same public against targeting you...Trumpkins public is rightfully socialist, just brainwashed by the very elites they think themselves against, lol
softwaredoug 5y ago
The article is really about messaging and strategy then caring about cars. Specifically the author says: > But the project won't grow beyond my town if I can't attract other participants. So basically, I think the author is saying don’t “other” people because they happen to live in a town that relies on cars, rather invite them into something cooler and hip
- jcims 5y ago
  I think it’s just a function of how much cars trigger some folks here on HN.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  You get the "read the article and grokked it before commenting" award. (I most decidedly do not.)
JohnFen 5y ago
> Don't make it a moral argument that frames drivers as sinners and pedestrians, cyclists, etc as The Good Guys. So much this. I live in a US city that has an atypically large number of people who bicycle as their primary transportation. I do as well, but I also have a car and drive when that's more appropriate. The years have taught me some things about the car vs bike divide: car drivers tend to be real jerks toward bicyclists, and bicyclists tend to be real jerks toward car drivers. It's lose-lose, particularly because it's not rare that either the car or the bike (or both) navigate dangerously as a result, increasing the chances that someone's going to have an accident, and reaffirming the negative stereotypes each has toward the other.
- DoreenMichele 5y ago
  We already have cyclists coming through town and heading up to the Olympic Peninsula and the like, as is documented in the Project Bike Rack post. I think if businesses are informed that people want bike racks, they might be willing to supply them as a low cost means to attract more tourist dollars with less environmental burden. Cataloging existing bike racks and "bike rack wanted" sites will take time. And then I need to figure out how to connect with businesses and there are no doubt many other details still to be uncovered. This is a brand new project but it grows out of a lot of research. I think it holds promise for actually making a difference while being a lightweight solution.
- teucris 5y ago
  I am anti-car and it has nothing to do with drivers - it has to do with infrastructure. Our cities are designed for cars, multi-ton machines the favored entity in a sea of squishy humans. I think this sets us all up to be in conflict, to force us to protect ourselves and it brings out the worst in us.
  - BLKNSLVR 5y ago
    The paranoia required to just stay alive as a cyclist doesn't promote anything near to harmonious co-existence. I don't ride on roads because I can't stand the stress. As a cyclist on the road you're inhabiting a very unbalanced risk vs reward equation. I know the percentages are low, but one mistake from you, or more likely someone else, and BAM, life over or changed forever more. I've been involved in enough car accidents to distrust the average human's ability to drive.
trenning 5y ago
What about the old cycling elitists who are anti car and anti ebike? I remember when I was still surprised by the amount of old cyclist dudes who hate the existence of ebikes. Now it feels commonplace when interacting with that community
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  I don't think that lasted very long. E-Bikes are so common now that I don't think other cyclists give them a second thought.
patrickwalton 5y ago
This immediately makes me think of the role attacking pedestrians played in the rise of the automobile. https://www.vox.com/2015/1/15/7551873/jaywalking-history https://www.vox.com/2015/1/15/7551873/jaywalking-history The auto companies played dirty. Maybe it's time to make it clear that they're the source of so much illness in American people and cities.
- patrickwalton 5y ago
  It's like saying: ~Don't attack the tobacco companies, talk about alternative forms of recreation.~ Sure, but also attack tobacco companies. Sometimes the solution to a plague is to attack the plague.
- jazzyjackson 5y ago
  See also 99% invisible’s “the modern moloch” about how much of a disruption cars proved to be, but managed to lobby the public to accept them (while being very victim-blamey by today’s standards) > On the streets of early 20th-century America, nothing moved faster than 10 miles per hour. Responsible parents would tell their children, “Go outside and play in the streets,” all day. > And then the automobile happened. And then automobiles began killing thousands of children, every year. https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-76-the-modern-moloch/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-76-the-modern...
  - patrickwalton 5y ago
    Thousands of children. That's tragic. I've been lamenting children's loss of free range. I thought it was due to saliency bias around kidnapping, but it sounds like the auto companies may be at larger fault.
TuringNYC 5y ago
I think this only works if it isnt opinionated and finger-wagging prescriptive to masses. I'll provide an example, I'm pro-cylcing. I rarely drive and mostly cycle to work, or use mass transit during rain/snow. ...but, some of the anti-car pro-cycling rhetoric I hear in my hometown of NYC is insane -- there are calls to ban cars on large sections of the city and have people bicycle. I say insane because it suggests people have never been around elderly folks. What are the disabled supposed to do? What about those with infants? What happens if you are carrying groceries? What about those with bad knees? What happens on the day when all the bikes have been borrowed and there are no options but a cab?
- triceratops 5y ago
  > What are the disabled supposed to do? Golf carts. Electric wheelchairs. > What about those with infants? Definitely don't put them in cars. They're the leading killer of children, nationwide. If you care about your baby's safety, you'll put it in the car as little as possible, only when there are no other options. > What happens if you are carrying groceries? If you have children, then under the stroller. Or in a bike trailer/stroller combo. Or foldable personal shopping carts - I always see little old ladies with those. Or a rucksack. > What about those with bad knees? E-bikes with throttles. Or trikes. Or golf carts. > What happens on the day when all the bikes have been borrowed and there are no options but a cab? How likely is that?
  - qngcdvy 5y ago
    > How likely is that? Well, having been in Paris: There are many times and places when all the shared bikes are borrowed.
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sudosysgen 5y ago
Sorry, no. Cars are the problem. The reason why other transit modes are a solution isn't because they in particular are the best option, generally it's because they aren't cars. Cars aren't individual choices. They are a societal choice that costs a trillion dollars a year to make work. The issue is cars. No matter which way you slice it, we need to remove cars, and that will necessarily mean making driving a car worse. I don't think that hiding your goals or intentions is politically a good option. Don't argue something you don't believe in. If you (correctly) identify that cars and car-supporting infrastructure is one of the biggest problems in North America, you have to call it like it is. We don't actually want other options. We want better other options. The only way to get that is to de-incentivize cars. That's the reason why cars suck to begin with, the proliferation of cars makes every other mode of transport worse, except for inter-city rail, if only by sheer mass effect. Now I agree that we shouldn't other people by putting them in categories and identifying them with the car. That doesn't mean that we stop opposing the real policies that make cars a good personal option and counter them with policies that make alternatives better, generally at their expense in some way or another. I agree that inter-personally the matter can be approached better, but that does not carry to changing your policy positions or goals, and that should never justify lying about what those are.
- sfvisser 5y ago
  Not all car usage is a problem. I’m from the Netherlands which is incredibly bicycle friendly. Small country, highly urban, great cycling infra, great public transport, nearly everyone walks or cycles whenever it makes sense. Still, cars are everywhere. There are just tons of trips where the alternative doesn’t really make sense. Municipalities try everything to make the life of car owners miserable to force them into using alternatives. The only outcome is miserable drivers. They are in the car for a reason and won’t just switch.
  - bartvk 5y ago
    > Still, cars are everywhere. There are just tons of trips where the alternative doesn’t really make sense. The obvious alternative is a car sharing platform. I've got a couple in my neighborhood and they work for the kind of trip you're describing.
josephcsible 5y ago
There's a lot of people who live in suburbs and commute by car into cities. Most anti-car proposals are all downside and no upside for these people. We should look for proposals that give them appealing alternatives to cars, rather than just making their lives worse.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  There are such proposals, commuter rail and local public transport. But ultimately, suburbs are built around the car. No matter what you do, suburbs will not be as functional without cars as they are with cars, because they were specifically built with the assumption in mind that everyone using them has a car. So yes, people in suburbs will lose out, it's unfortunate but it's not really anyone's fault. The reality is that life in the suburbs is already full of negative externalities and is generally only sustainable because of subsidies from the cities and to some extent the rural sectors. So the solution is going to be making the city a liveable place for many of them, which is much easier with cars reduced, as well as build suburbs that can be lived in without cars, but those will look very different from the North American suburbs of today. Beyond that, every solution such as commuter train, suburban public transport options, etc... is inevitably going to be worse than the car, and that's the sad consequence of how these places were badly designed.
  - bookofsand 5y ago
    I have very fond memories of a quaint ~100k Netherlands city where most of the commuting happened by bike because everything was within a 20 minutes bike ride. Using a car was simply a hassle. By the time you walk to its parking spot, drive, park, walk to your destination, you are already there on bike. I live in a North American city. The city is zoned the almost all of the jobs are in downtown, u district and maybe the port. Everywhere else is a job desert. To commute by bike to downtown from within the city limits, forget about the suburbs, is an hour each way. This is unfeasible, other than for young people, usually men, with no kids or other obligations. It's a luxury lifestyle, not the obvious choice. The problem is not the suburbs. The problem is the downtown. The problem is the expectation that millions of people have to commute in/out the downtown every day. Break down the downtown. Build small office parks all over the 'suburbs'. Spend real $$$ to help families solve the two-body problem. Edit. Apparently I feel quite strongly about this. Here's a bit more. Suburbs are build around people wanting a decent living space for their families. The car helps, quite a lot, but it's not like suburbanites wake up on Sunday mornings, hop on their Cars and go to the CarTemple to sing praise and offer their first borns as sacrifice to the CarGod. There is simply a dearth of real alternatives, which mostly boils down to a simple question: Are the jobs anywhere near where people want to live?
swader999 5y ago
I'm pro working from home.
dredmorbius 5y ago
"Don't be anti-Axis-powers. Be pro something else." "Don't be anti-HIV. Be pro something else." "Don't be anti-crime. Be pro something else." "Don't be anti-(house|city|wild)-fire. Be pro something else." "Don't be anti-discrimination. Be pro something else." "Don't be anti-software-defect. Be pro something else." Cheap and meaningless rhetorical techniques are best exposed by substituting in other terms. It's useful to note that problem solving has a number of stages. That generally involves identification of a problem, a goal, a path-to-goal, and a mechanism for achieving said path. That said, which you focus on (problem, goal, path, mechanism) is best determined by where focus is most effectively attended. And that varies by the problem. Blanket prescriptions rarely work. The automobile has created the modern urban landscape and its characteristics. That's the primary focus in reversing or correcting many of those faults. https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2fsr0g/hierarchy_of_failures_in_problem_resolution/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2fsr0g/hierarc...
- dflock 5y ago
  > "Don't be anti-Axis-powers. Be pro something else." Pro: Allies, peace. > "Don't be anti-HIV. Be pro something else." Pro: Science, research, vaccines, health equality, etc... > "Don't be anti-crime. Be pro something else." Pro: Social security/welfare, Mental Healthcare for all, drug legalization, rehabilitation, etc... > "Don't be anti-(house|city|wild)-fire. Be pro something else." Pro: Ecological Forest Management, Public Services, Firefighers & Funding, etc... > "Don't be anti-discrimination. Be pro something else." Pro: Social Justice, Black Lives Matter, Equality, etc... > "Don't be anti-software-defect. Be pro something else." Pro: Unit Tests, End-to-End Testing, User Testing, Fuzzing, Documentation, etc...
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    Sometimes, if your goal is to hit a specific target, the best advice is "aim for the bullseye", and not "don't aim at everything that isn't the bullseye". Worse yet, an enumerated list of non-bullseyes not to aim at. I get Doreen's point. I can see the political logic in alliance-building. I understand that there are times when full-frontal assaults go poorly. I actually don't have a whole lot of issue with the suggestions. In this one case the advice might even be valid, for messaging purposes. As a general rule, and in terms of devising strategy, it's ... ill-conceived.
29athrowaway 5y ago
I am anti 5+ seat cars with 1 occupant in them.
quicklime 5y ago
As much as I agree with the strategy (it's just good marketing) I have to say that I've never met anyone who thinks that bikes (or any other mode of transport) can replace cars 100%. And I know a lot of cyclists. Every single one of them uses a mix of transportation modes, which include: cycling, walking, public transit, and sometimes even cars! The only people I know that think we can build cities around a single mode of transport are (a subset of) car drivers. And in my experience, the most successful way to talk to these people isn't to be "pro-bike", it's to be pro transit choice. But I always have to explain this very carefully, because most people assume that anyone who talks about bike lanes or trains is anti-car.
- moooo99 5y ago
  > I have to say that I've never met anyone who thinks that bikes (or any other mode of transport) can replace cars 100%. Probably not, but it is certainly feasible to eliminated the need of owning a car.
xmodem 5y ago
I'm not anti-car. I'm pro car users following the road rules and acknowledging the existence of other road users.
foxes 5y ago
Plenty of people are pro cycling, public transport, infrastructure etc. Designing cities mostly around the need for cars is a disease and a blight on urban landscapes. Don't simp for them.
Barrin92 5y ago
This is a terrible strategy, it never got anyone anywhere. It's the result of a sort of bleeding heart learned helplessness. It's the attitude of people who have lost the ability to be confrontational in pursuit of goals. Take smoking as an example. How did we reduce smoking? (arguably one of the most successful public health campaigns in recent history). Did we stop being anti-smoking and instead promoted something else? No! We banned smokers from bars, we told people that smoking sucked, we plastered ugly pictures of black lungs on boxes and we taxed the crap out of smokers. Ironically, the big change is often easier than the small one. Cars are the problem, point it out. Haggling about bike lanes is a colossal waste of time. We need to completely revamp how we commute and how we life, communicate that clearly, and point out whoever stands in the way.
- amarant 5y ago
  The difference is that people actually need to get around, and not in the "addicted to nicotine" kind of way either. Being anti smoking worked because there was no need for a replacement, but we can't feasibly just remove cars workout replacing them with something, some other mode of transportation. Until that other mode exists, and is workable in the specific area, being anti-car doesn't make sense..
  - jcims 5y ago
    >replacing them with something (costing hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars and 2-20 years to build) NYC has the highest transit use of any city in the US and they would still have to nearly double capacity to get rid of cars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._cities_with_high_transit_ridership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._cities_with_high_...
    - lwansbrough 5y ago
      Easy, get rid of cars. Makes room for more busses.
      - masklinn 5y ago
zahma 5y ago
I live in a dense city center where there is a severe shortage of space for dedicated infrastructure. As more people ride their bikes, the logical next step is to remove cars from the roads to ensure cyclists have ample space and cars can’t pass recklessly or otherwise discourage further uptake by newcomers. A four-lane street that has one lane for buses and taxis, two regular traffic, and a two way cycling lane separated by a low curb is perhaps the most dangerous place I’ve had to ride here, and that’s because cyclists are all packed into such tiny areas. Closing roads to further discourage commuting would go a long way to wrestle back control of the streets. Being anti-car isn’t the best first step, but it is inevitable that we take up this position when viable alternatives — not just cycling — are available and convenient.
roschdal 5y ago
I am pro cars with petrol engines.
matttproud 5y ago
You should give Howard Kunstler‘s The Geography of Nowhere and Duany, et al.‘s Suburban Nation a read. (There are other good ones, too). These will contextual like what an overhaul of the planning and codes process should look like.
mtmsr 5y ago
Public traffic space is limited (and in major cities exhausted) supply. Being "pro something else" is automatically anti-something. If do not make the latter part explicit it will just hurt the weakest group (typically reducing space for pedestrians).
noduerme 5y ago
I'm anti-car (cars as a regular transit method, parking lots, urban sprawl, burning up hydrocarbons, etc), but I love my car. I love working on it, I love driving it, I love the fact that I can go anywhere with it at any time without consulting a bus or train schedule. I'm anti-smoking. I'd tell anyone not to smoke. But I love cigarettes. I'm in favor of gun control. But I own guns. See where I'm going with this? I'm happy to have a conversation with anyone about the better alternative ways to live, but about 99% of the responses in this thread rub me the wrong way because they're sanctimonious, pompous and aggrieved, and want to explain the right and wrong way to live from the perspective of a child. One major thing they fail to take into account is that people have grown accustomed to certain freedoms (like not asking permission to go somewhere, or waiting for a bus), and a naive attempt to start solving the world's problems by curtailing other people's freedoms is a non-starter. Ultimately, you can convince people why these things are bad for society and why there are better alternatives (or why they should be given up completely), but there are major reasons why society adopted these things in the first place and when you come at it from the angle of "you're wrong, you're terrible and you suck and you need to quit smoking / stop working on your car / give your guns to the government", you're going to hit a huge amount of resistance compared with trying to make incremental changes and presenting a case for better lifestyle alternatives.
- deleted 5y ago
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- jeromenerf 5y ago
  People have difficulties to accept change when innovations go from liberating to considered harmful in a decade. Cars, smartphones … What feels weird is the « reaction »: as environmental concerns progress, cars (and smartphones) are still being manufactured and marketed as more powerful, faster, shinier, brighter, … production costs are still dwarfing the energy saved by new models efficiency, by a lot. I like driving my roadster car. It has a rather humble 1.8l engine, I bought it second hand and I don’t commute with it.
  - noduerme 5y ago
    This is true. I was always anti-smart phone and anti-social media. As well as being anti buying anything unnecessary. My car is 40 years old. But now my modest positions seem at odds with the holier than thou PC police, who indulge in all of the above and yet somehow feel morally superior enough to 'splain to me why no one should drive a car. This all goes back to not approaching people by telling them what you're against, because it makes even the most righteous person come off as a hypocrite.
dredmorbius 5y ago
The real key to this post is how to message and advocate effectively for major social change. (I totally missed this on my first read as well.) Cars, like much else in modern life, aren't purely functional objects and totems, but are very strongly linked with lifestyle, status, and identity. A campaign that directly attacks these ... probably won't go well. There have been similar campaigns in the recent past, though, which have been highly effective. The campaign against smoking, begun in earnest in 1961, is probably among the more successful. https://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/744d3maa3uqlxcitxabzxw.gif https://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Pro... That involved a lot of approaches. Education was one prong, but increasing costs, decreasing the opposition's abiity to propagandise (the tobacco firms), increasing costs, reducing the number of places where smoking was acceptable, changing attitudes toward whether or not smoking was "cool" or a status signal, etc., all contributed. It took literally decades. But it worked, with US rates now less than half their 1945 peak.
- deleted 5y ago
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- fomine3 5y ago
  In Tokyo, some young people now tend to think that not to have car is cool (that's now concern for big car brands). Just curious is there similar thought in Europe or other urbans. Suspected reasons: car isn't ecological, is obviously dangerous and takes responsibility, isn't so useful because there are great public transport (unless have children), or sour grapes because salary in japan is low compared to car price and parking in Tokyo.
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    One of the biggest factors driving reductions in car use (ownership, but also driving) has been expense. For all that basic economics gets many things wrong, increasing price is a highly effective way of reducing a specific behaviour. Costs may be any of several factors. Purchase price is one, but that's relatively minor. Insurance, registration, parking, fuel, requirements to have (or have in the car) child-safety seats (an expense themselves, but also taking up room in the vehicle, possibly for little effective safety, see: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/car-seats/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/car-seats/), smog and other inspections, etc., etc. Eventually a tipping point is reached, and not using or even owning a car is the preferred option. Given the role of land use, transit, and other private-ownership alternatives (including ride hailing services / taxies), that's not a simple matter of price. But a set of policies working in concert can effect that kind of change.
fomine3 5y ago
How "just ban" won't work: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/world/europe/france-fuel-tax-yellow-vests.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/world/europe/france-fuel-...
holoduke 5y ago
I love cars. Not only how they look and work, but because it can bring me to places where other people don't usually go. It gives me the ultimate freedom feeling. Going far in car to some remote country/region is such a nice thing to do. I don't want to live in a city from where I rarely leave. I need my cars.
re-al 5y ago
I don't understand the emotion, or even the idea that I have to feel something about cars or roads. What is it to do with me, why should I care? Its not as if I can do anything about it. The governance structure provided us with road infrastructure in the past. We were sold this idea and developed our lives around it. Now the governance structure wants us to live in smart cities, with no cars. This allows for greater control and tighter management of the tax paying stock. No one gets to vote for this stuff. It is not a way of life I would choose - I don't like being manipulated. I'm not going to stand at the sidelines and clap these changes on. It is communitarianism - but its not a good thing.
dalbasal 5y ago
So... IDK. Intellectually, I agree with this. Applied to the personal sphere, a company, family or whatever... being pro something else is probably the way to go. As a macro-political goal... perhaps not. For a big, hairy example, look at revolutions, or politics generally. Take the American, French or other republican revolution. They were anti-King. Democratic republics were an afterthought, something to fill the void. The Communist Manifesto is notably light on communism. Half of it is anti capitalism. The other half is anti other versions of socialism. Most independence movements of the last century+ were nationalist by default, the actual motivating sentiment was anti imperialism. The hole in the ozone layer was reverse by being anti-cfl, not pro-replacements. Meanwhile, solution-focused movements like the overfishing haven't been very effective. It's not a pleasant thought, but I think people are just easier to rally against something than for something.
bttrfl 5y ago
This is a good advice but on gov level. Governments don't need to be anti car, they just need to stop being pro car and incentivise their use. Stop subsidies, stop tax benefits for both users/producers, stop building new roads, stop turning free spaces into parking lots etc. and be pro something else. Just make 99% of the car traffic infeasible (slow, expensive...) and market will come up with alternative ways to make 99% of activities that today require a car feasible without them.
devaler 5y ago
I’ve found that when it comes to their cars, people seem to get offended very easily (at least in my part of the U.S.). Case in point: I suggested physical traffic-calming solutions for my neighborhood in order to combat excessive speeding, and a community member said, “We don’t live in communist China.”
slifin 5y ago
It's fine to be anti car, I think the "concession" you do need to make is that the context is really important, I live in the middle of a busy city that really suffers from traffic problems When I'm talking about pedestrianising or bike lanes or e-scooters etc it's from the perspective of a busy city that does not have enough room for cars It's important to acknowledge that most car alternatives are not an option for people like farmers or people who live out in the sticks and so people in the country are typically not who I'm talking about when talking about anti car ideas
usrusr 5y ago
The car-dependent are so exceptionally good at spinning every pro-something into anti-car (unless it's pro car) that any attempted distinction between pro-something and anti-car is futile. Embrace the antagonism they force on you, be anti-car.
machinehermiter 5y ago
anti-car? people need to quit social media. It is rotting your brain.
11235813213455 5y ago
What I'd love is changing the road safety rules in favor of bikes (because bikes lanes can't do everything, sometimes they are terrible or not existing) 1. High priority vehicles firemen/police/amulance 2. Shared transports (bus/tram) 3. Bikes 4. Other motorized vehicles - cars Also reducing drastically driving speed to reduce risks
Ajedi32 5y ago
A big part of the problem is that all existing alternatives are objectively inferior on an individual level. Cars provide long or short distance uninterrupted point-to-point transportation in a private environment with climate control and a large cargo capacity. Every alternative is worse in some or all of these ways, and the few advantages they do offer are usually only worth those drawbacks in rather niche circumstances.
specialist 5y ago
Offense beats defense. This OC's advice is completely, utterly, logically, emotionally, psychologically, economically, and in all other ways thoroughly correct. Any one who disagrees has obviously not done any policy work. Other perks when advocating for progress: Messaging is generally easier. If you're explaining, you're losing. Focus! Avoid getting dragged into pedantic slap fights, distracting side quests, arguing about details and semantics. It's hard to win fights on enemy turf. Everyone is already complaining about everything. Be the one who has a plan, something positive to say. Honey vs vinegar.
hootbootscoot 5y ago
What mirrors my visceral full-body negative reaction to large swathes of asphalt and often extremely noisy and apparently aggressive (look at modern autos front-ends and tell me they are not designed to look like predators) swarms of vehicles speeding by as quickly as they possibly can, most emitting vast clouds of bad-smelling exhaust gasses that are carcinogenic and contributing to climate change as well as general poor air quality for the unfortunate humans nearby, anyway, I was saying: what mirrors my revulsion at the inelegance of cars and their road support system is a love of treelined paths. A love of trees. A love of well designed botanical gardens. A love of 100 year old walnut trees, or mango trees large enough to provide shade for an entire housing block. We can have a paradise on earth here, as soon as it stops being "cool" and "normal" to turn this planet into a wasteland. We can design our transport around a sensible way of life that doesn't involve all the human ants having to shuffle themselves 100km from their dwellings each day, in pursuit of informatic careers of deep personal meaning. etc.
- hootbootscoot 5y ago
  I will also propose separating transport planes. There is no excuse for mixing cars and pedestrians in an inner city. I see no viable excuse for traffic lights and forcing petrol-burning vehicles to idle. All car traffic that crosses with living spaces should be in tunnels etc, and all flow controlled as in highway entrance/exits and roundabouts, etc.

133 points by DoreenMichele 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

"Don't be anti X. Be pro something else" this mentality can and should be applied to all issues in my opinion. Being "pro solution" is far more productive than being "anti problem".

ripper1138 5y ago
Agreed. Anyone can point out a problem, some can be "pro solution", and very few actually solve problems. Unfortunate reality of the world.
patrickwalton 5y ago
Sometimes the solution is to get rid of the problem. Take tobacco for instance. May not be true of cars, but I'm pretty bitter about the unhealthy car-centric societies that 100 years of auto lobbying has left us with.
- flemhans 5y ago
  Arguably a safer alternative to smoking could be part of a solution too.
teucris 5y ago
Okay, I am for making most cities pedestrian and bike-only zones with exceptions for delivery vehicles and carefully isolated motor vehicle routes. Do you think framing my position with a solution will really change the discussion?
sudosysgen 5y ago
The issue that there is no single solution to cars, and the problem is indeed cars. So unless you mean "Don't be anti cars, instead be pro-everything-else in a way that is detrimental to car operation", I have to disagree.

stefan_ 5y ago

The conservative chant, as if space in a city is not an ultimate zero-sum game. Any "pro something else" eventually butts up against having 80% of space and 110% of government drone mindshare allocated to cars.

sokoloff 5y ago
Sure, but I think people are generally more sympathetic to "here is something that people want and aren't getting; I'd like us to consider letting the people have some of that" (the pro-whatever angle, even if that is inevitably anti-car in implementation) than they are to "I think that cars are currently too convenient and should be made less convenient" (the anti-car angle). It's the difference between "I want this thing I don't have" (understandable/evokes empathy) versus "I don't want others to have the thing they have" (much less understandable and evokes almost no empathy).
- adrianN 5y ago
  That just leads to the "oh yes that's a good idea, let's form a working group!" response but never leads to actual change because that would require taking space away from cars.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    Taking space/utility away from a current use that's broadly viewed as beneficial (or at least necessary) and experienced by many as a net-positive will require some level of consensus-building [and why-explaining]. I (and the article) suggested a path that I think is more likely to succeed at that necessary (if annoying) step. But if you think a more direct, anti-car strategy will work better, I'm not anti- your anti-car strategy. I'm pro "tell me what you want instead that would be better" because I think that's more likely to succeed.

drewcoo 5y ago

That's a wonderful way to divide all of the people who are anti-car into thousands of different voices shouting for different things at once. As an aside, pointing all those don'ts at the reader is awfully hypocritical.

yellowapple 5y ago
A unified voice without solutions is unlikely to be more effective at fixing a problem than a divided voice with solutions. That's the crux of the pro-solution argument. If anti-car folks don't want us driving cars, then we need solutions to address the various legitimate use cases of cars.

II2II 5y ago

The thing is, most of the cycling advocacy I see is pro solution yet the opposition response is largely anti problem. Those who want to ride safely typically propose infrastructure based solutions and rarely treat the automobile itself as the problem. For example: while you may see advocacy for protected lanes or traffic calming, almost no one is arguing that cars should be removed from the roads. Contrast that to the opposition response, which often seeks to have bikes removed from the roads and never supports accommodation for different modes of transportation.

anigbrowl 5y ago
Quite. this is nice, but the idea that 'I think you can actively try to become the hot new thing in part by working on being inoffensive' is naive. That approach works great for networking with peers but not against aggressive opposition. There are a lot of people in the world who thrive on seeing other people worse off, to a greater degree than being equivalently better off themselves. In game theory terms, they're willing to experience a loss in order to inflict a loss on others. Online they present as trolls.
- II2II 5y ago
  I have no doubt that some people want to see others worse off. Some people seem to get angry about just about anything. Yet I suspect that most people respond negatively for other reasons. A common case is they perceive it as a loss to themselves, even when there is no justification to that perception. To choose a concrete example from pedestrian safety: curb extensions are often proposed to make crossing pedestrians more visible and to slow turning traffic. A common criticism is a loss of parking. That criticism ignores that curb extensions rarely impact parking since people are not supposed to park within a certain distance of a crosswalk.
  - jdc 5y ago
    > A common case is they perceive it as a loss to themselves, even when there is no justification to that perception. This is symptomatic of an oppositional mindset IMO.

ahoy 5y ago

"please dont present a united voice against the source of the problem. Balkanize yourselves into a dozen little groups so no change ever happens!"

shadofx 5y ago
Occupy Wall Street was a unified voice. Nothing was achieved because there was no clear goal.
- hootbootscoot 5y ago
  And Tiannamen was crushed, but one still has to try, as the watershed moment or breaking point can come in the blink of an eye. It's my view that Occupy was dismantled by the vested interests it confronted, in the form of paid editorial hit jobs, much as anything that threatens large hegemonies of power. The goal was simple and achieved: awareness of how Wall Street gambling led to the global economic crisis of 2007 and 8 It was ahead of it's time, and will later be seen as such. What is puzzling to me is how easily that anti-elite message was hijacked by Trumpkins and his elitest of silver-spooned back-scratching politics, which certainly goes against the spirit of Occupy. The takeaway is that there is a public for anti-elite messaging, but that it's now possible to weaponize that in order to innoculate that very same public against targeting you...Trumpkins public is rightfully socialist, just brainwashed by the very elites they think themselves against, lol

softwaredoug 5y ago

The article is really about messaging and strategy then caring about cars. Specifically the author says: > But the project won't grow beyond my town if I can't attract other participants. So basically, I think the author is saying don’t “other” people because they happen to live in a town that relies on cars, rather invite them into something cooler and hip

jcims 5y ago
I think it’s just a function of how much cars trigger some folks here on HN.
dredmorbius 5y ago
You get the "read the article and grokked it before commenting" award. (I most decidedly do not.)

JohnFen 5y ago

> Don't make it a moral argument that frames drivers as sinners and pedestrians, cyclists, etc as The Good Guys. So much this. I live in a US city that has an atypically large number of people who bicycle as their primary transportation. I do as well, but I also have a car and drive when that's more appropriate. The years have taught me some things about the car vs bike divide: car drivers tend to be real jerks toward bicyclists, and bicyclists tend to be real jerks toward car drivers. It's lose-lose, particularly because it's not rare that either the car or the bike (or both) navigate dangerously as a result, increasing the chances that someone's going to have an accident, and reaffirming the negative stereotypes each has toward the other.

DoreenMichele 5y ago
We already have cyclists coming through town and heading up to the Olympic Peninsula and the like, as is documented in the Project Bike Rack post. I think if businesses are informed that people want bike racks, they might be willing to supply them as a low cost means to attract more tourist dollars with less environmental burden. Cataloging existing bike racks and "bike rack wanted" sites will take time. And then I need to figure out how to connect with businesses and there are no doubt many other details still to be uncovered. This is a brand new project but it grows out of a lot of research. I think it holds promise for actually making a difference while being a lightweight solution.
teucris 5y ago
I am anti-car and it has nothing to do with drivers - it has to do with infrastructure. Our cities are designed for cars, multi-ton machines the favored entity in a sea of squishy humans. I think this sets us all up to be in conflict, to force us to protect ourselves and it brings out the worst in us.
- BLKNSLVR 5y ago
  The paranoia required to just stay alive as a cyclist doesn't promote anything near to harmonious co-existence. I don't ride on roads because I can't stand the stress. As a cyclist on the road you're inhabiting a very unbalanced risk vs reward equation. I know the percentages are low, but one mistake from you, or more likely someone else, and BAM, life over or changed forever more. I've been involved in enough car accidents to distrust the average human's ability to drive.

trenning 5y ago

What about the old cycling elitists who are anti car and anti ebike? I remember when I was still surprised by the amount of old cyclist dudes who hate the existence of ebikes. Now it feels commonplace when interacting with that community

tonyedgecombe 5y ago
I don't think that lasted very long. E-Bikes are so common now that I don't think other cyclists give them a second thought.

patrickwalton 5y ago

This immediately makes me think of the role attacking pedestrians played in the rise of the automobile. https://www.vox.com/2015/1/15/7551873/jaywalking-history https://www.vox.com/2015/1/15/7551873/jaywalking-history The auto companies played dirty. Maybe it's time to make it clear that they're the source of so much illness in American people and cities.

patrickwalton 5y ago
It's like saying: ~Don't attack the tobacco companies, talk about alternative forms of recreation.~ Sure, but also attack tobacco companies. Sometimes the solution to a plague is to attack the plague.
jazzyjackson 5y ago
See also 99% invisible’s “the modern moloch” about how much of a disruption cars proved to be, but managed to lobby the public to accept them (while being very victim-blamey by today’s standards) > On the streets of early 20th-century America, nothing moved faster than 10 miles per hour. Responsible parents would tell their children, “Go outside and play in the streets,” all day. > And then the automobile happened. And then automobiles began killing thousands of children, every year. https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-76-the-modern-moloch/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-76-the-modern...
- patrickwalton 5y ago
  Thousands of children. That's tragic. I've been lamenting children's loss of free range. I thought it was due to saliency bias around kidnapping, but it sounds like the auto companies may be at larger fault.

TuringNYC 5y ago

I think this only works if it isnt opinionated and finger-wagging prescriptive to masses. I'll provide an example, I'm pro-cylcing. I rarely drive and mostly cycle to work, or use mass transit during rain/snow. ...but, some of the anti-car pro-cycling rhetoric I hear in my hometown of NYC is insane -- there are calls to ban cars on large sections of the city and have people bicycle. I say insane because it suggests people have never been around elderly folks. What are the disabled supposed to do? What about those with infants? What happens if you are carrying groceries? What about those with bad knees? What happens on the day when all the bikes have been borrowed and there are no options but a cab?

triceratops 5y ago
> What are the disabled supposed to do? Golf carts. Electric wheelchairs. > What about those with infants? Definitely don't put them in cars. They're the leading killer of children, nationwide. If you care about your baby's safety, you'll put it in the car as little as possible, only when there are no other options. > What happens if you are carrying groceries? If you have children, then under the stroller. Or in a bike trailer/stroller combo. Or foldable personal shopping carts - I always see little old ladies with those. Or a rucksack. > What about those with bad knees? E-bikes with throttles. Or trikes. Or golf carts. > What happens on the day when all the bikes have been borrowed and there are no options but a cab? How likely is that?
- qngcdvy 5y ago
  > How likely is that? Well, having been in Paris: There are many times and places when all the shared bikes are borrowed.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

sudosysgen 5y ago

Sorry, no. Cars are the problem. The reason why other transit modes are a solution isn't because they in particular are the best option, generally it's because they aren't cars. Cars aren't individual choices. They are a societal choice that costs a trillion dollars a year to make work. The issue is cars. No matter which way you slice it, we need to remove cars, and that will necessarily mean making driving a car worse. I don't think that hiding your goals or intentions is politically a good option. Don't argue something you don't believe in. If you (correctly) identify that cars and car-supporting infrastructure is one of the biggest problems in North America, you have to call it like it is. We don't actually want other options. We want better other options. The only way to get that is to de-incentivize cars. That's the reason why cars suck to begin with, the proliferation of cars makes every other mode of transport worse, except for inter-city rail, if only by sheer mass effect. Now I agree that we shouldn't other people by putting them in categories and identifying them with the car. That doesn't mean that we stop opposing the real policies that make cars a good personal option and counter them with policies that make alternatives better, generally at their expense in some way or another. I agree that inter-personally the matter can be approached better, but that does not carry to changing your policy positions or goals, and that should never justify lying about what those are.

sfvisser 5y ago
Not all car usage is a problem. I’m from the Netherlands which is incredibly bicycle friendly. Small country, highly urban, great cycling infra, great public transport, nearly everyone walks or cycles whenever it makes sense. Still, cars are everywhere. There are just tons of trips where the alternative doesn’t really make sense. Municipalities try everything to make the life of car owners miserable to force them into using alternatives. The only outcome is miserable drivers. They are in the car for a reason and won’t just switch.
- bartvk 5y ago
  > Still, cars are everywhere. There are just tons of trips where the alternative doesn’t really make sense. The obvious alternative is a car sharing platform. I've got a couple in my neighborhood and they work for the kind of trip you're describing.

josephcsible 5y ago

There's a lot of people who live in suburbs and commute by car into cities. Most anti-car proposals are all downside and no upside for these people. We should look for proposals that give them appealing alternatives to cars, rather than just making their lives worse.

sudosysgen 5y ago
There are such proposals, commuter rail and local public transport. But ultimately, suburbs are built around the car. No matter what you do, suburbs will not be as functional without cars as they are with cars, because they were specifically built with the assumption in mind that everyone using them has a car. So yes, people in suburbs will lose out, it's unfortunate but it's not really anyone's fault. The reality is that life in the suburbs is already full of negative externalities and is generally only sustainable because of subsidies from the cities and to some extent the rural sectors. So the solution is going to be making the city a liveable place for many of them, which is much easier with cars reduced, as well as build suburbs that can be lived in without cars, but those will look very different from the North American suburbs of today. Beyond that, every solution such as commuter train, suburban public transport options, etc... is inevitably going to be worse than the car, and that's the sad consequence of how these places were badly designed.
- bookofsand 5y ago
  I have very fond memories of a quaint ~100k Netherlands city where most of the commuting happened by bike because everything was within a 20 minutes bike ride. Using a car was simply a hassle. By the time you walk to its parking spot, drive, park, walk to your destination, you are already there on bike. I live in a North American city. The city is zoned the almost all of the jobs are in downtown, u district and maybe the port. Everywhere else is a job desert. To commute by bike to downtown from within the city limits, forget about the suburbs, is an hour each way. This is unfeasible, other than for young people, usually men, with no kids or other obligations. It's a luxury lifestyle, not the obvious choice. The problem is not the suburbs. The problem is the downtown. The problem is the expectation that millions of people have to commute in/out the downtown every day. Break down the downtown. Build small office parks all over the 'suburbs'. Spend real $$$ to help families solve the two-body problem. Edit. Apparently I feel quite strongly about this. Here's a bit more. Suburbs are build around people wanting a decent living space for their families. The car helps, quite a lot, but it's not like suburbanites wake up on Sunday mornings, hop on their Cars and go to the CarTemple to sing praise and offer their first borns as sacrifice to the CarGod. There is simply a dearth of real alternatives, which mostly boils down to a simple question: Are the jobs anywhere near where people want to live?

swader999 5y ago

I'm pro working from home.

dredmorbius 5y ago

"Don't be anti-Axis-powers. Be pro something else." "Don't be anti-HIV. Be pro something else." "Don't be anti-crime. Be pro something else." "Don't be anti-(house|city|wild)-fire. Be pro something else." "Don't be anti-discrimination. Be pro something else." "Don't be anti-software-defect. Be pro something else." Cheap and meaningless rhetorical techniques are best exposed by substituting in other terms. It's useful to note that problem solving has a number of stages. That generally involves identification of a problem, a goal, a path-to-goal, and a mechanism for achieving said path. That said, which you focus on (problem, goal, path, mechanism) is best determined by where focus is most effectively attended. And that varies by the problem. Blanket prescriptions rarely work. The automobile has created the modern urban landscape and its characteristics. That's the primary focus in reversing or correcting many of those faults. https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2fsr0g/hierarchy_of_failures_in_problem_resolution/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2fsr0g/hierarc...

dflock 5y ago
> "Don't be anti-Axis-powers. Be pro something else." Pro: Allies, peace. > "Don't be anti-HIV. Be pro something else." Pro: Science, research, vaccines, health equality, etc... > "Don't be anti-crime. Be pro something else." Pro: Social security/welfare, Mental Healthcare for all, drug legalization, rehabilitation, etc... > "Don't be anti-(house|city|wild)-fire. Be pro something else." Pro: Ecological Forest Management, Public Services, Firefighers & Funding, etc... > "Don't be anti-discrimination. Be pro something else." Pro: Social Justice, Black Lives Matter, Equality, etc... > "Don't be anti-software-defect. Be pro something else." Pro: Unit Tests, End-to-End Testing, User Testing, Fuzzing, Documentation, etc...
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  Sometimes, if your goal is to hit a specific target, the best advice is "aim for the bullseye", and not "don't aim at everything that isn't the bullseye". Worse yet, an enumerated list of non-bullseyes not to aim at. I get Doreen's point. I can see the political logic in alliance-building. I understand that there are times when full-frontal assaults go poorly. I actually don't have a whole lot of issue with the suggestions. In this one case the advice might even be valid, for messaging purposes. As a general rule, and in terms of devising strategy, it's ... ill-conceived.

29athrowaway 5y ago

I am anti 5+ seat cars with 1 occupant in them.

quicklime 5y ago

As much as I agree with the strategy (it's just good marketing) I have to say that I've never met anyone who thinks that bikes (or any other mode of transport) can replace cars 100%. And I know a lot of cyclists. Every single one of them uses a mix of transportation modes, which include: cycling, walking, public transit, and sometimes even cars! The only people I know that think we can build cities around a single mode of transport are (a subset of) car drivers. And in my experience, the most successful way to talk to these people isn't to be "pro-bike", it's to be pro transit choice. But I always have to explain this very carefully, because most people assume that anyone who talks about bike lanes or trains is anti-car.

moooo99 5y ago
> I have to say that I've never met anyone who thinks that bikes (or any other mode of transport) can replace cars 100%. Probably not, but it is certainly feasible to eliminated the need of owning a car.

xmodem 5y ago

I'm not anti-car. I'm pro car users following the road rules and acknowledging the existence of other road users.

foxes 5y ago

Plenty of people are pro cycling, public transport, infrastructure etc. Designing cities mostly around the need for cars is a disease and a blight on urban landscapes. Don't simp for them.

Barrin92 5y ago

This is a terrible strategy, it never got anyone anywhere. It's the result of a sort of bleeding heart learned helplessness. It's the attitude of people who have lost the ability to be confrontational in pursuit of goals. Take smoking as an example. How did we reduce smoking? (arguably one of the most successful public health campaigns in recent history). Did we stop being anti-smoking and instead promoted something else? No! We banned smokers from bars, we told people that smoking sucked, we plastered ugly pictures of black lungs on boxes and we taxed the crap out of smokers. Ironically, the big change is often easier than the small one. Cars are the problem, point it out. Haggling about bike lanes is a colossal waste of time. We need to completely revamp how we commute and how we life, communicate that clearly, and point out whoever stands in the way.

amarant 5y ago
The difference is that people actually need to get around, and not in the "addicted to nicotine" kind of way either. Being anti smoking worked because there was no need for a replacement, but we can't feasibly just remove cars workout replacing them with something, some other mode of transportation. Until that other mode exists, and is workable in the specific area, being anti-car doesn't make sense..
- jcims 5y ago
  >replacing them with something (costing hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars and 2-20 years to build) NYC has the highest transit use of any city in the US and they would still have to nearly double capacity to get rid of cars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._cities_with_high_transit_ridership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._cities_with_high_...
  - lwansbrough 5y ago
    Easy, get rid of cars. Makes room for more busses.
    - masklinn 5y ago

zahma 5y ago

I live in a dense city center where there is a severe shortage of space for dedicated infrastructure. As more people ride their bikes, the logical next step is to remove cars from the roads to ensure cyclists have ample space and cars can’t pass recklessly or otherwise discourage further uptake by newcomers. A four-lane street that has one lane for buses and taxis, two regular traffic, and a two way cycling lane separated by a low curb is perhaps the most dangerous place I’ve had to ride here, and that’s because cyclists are all packed into such tiny areas. Closing roads to further discourage commuting would go a long way to wrestle back control of the streets. Being anti-car isn’t the best first step, but it is inevitable that we take up this position when viable alternatives — not just cycling — are available and convenient.

roschdal 5y ago

I am pro cars with petrol engines.

matttproud 5y ago

You should give Howard Kunstler‘s The Geography of Nowhere and Duany, et al.‘s Suburban Nation a read. (There are other good ones, too). These will contextual like what an overhaul of the planning and codes process should look like.

mtmsr 5y ago

Public traffic space is limited (and in major cities exhausted) supply. Being "pro something else" is automatically anti-something. If do not make the latter part explicit it will just hurt the weakest group (typically reducing space for pedestrians).

noduerme 5y ago

I'm anti-car (cars as a regular transit method, parking lots, urban sprawl, burning up hydrocarbons, etc), but I love my car. I love working on it, I love driving it, I love the fact that I can go anywhere with it at any time without consulting a bus or train schedule. I'm anti-smoking. I'd tell anyone not to smoke. But I love cigarettes. I'm in favor of gun control. But I own guns. See where I'm going with this? I'm happy to have a conversation with anyone about the better alternative ways to live, but about 99% of the responses in this thread rub me the wrong way because they're sanctimonious, pompous and aggrieved, and want to explain the right and wrong way to live from the perspective of a child. One major thing they fail to take into account is that people have grown accustomed to certain freedoms (like not asking permission to go somewhere, or waiting for a bus), and a naive attempt to start solving the world's problems by curtailing other people's freedoms is a non-starter. Ultimately, you can convince people why these things are bad for society and why there are better alternatives (or why they should be given up completely), but there are major reasons why society adopted these things in the first place and when you come at it from the angle of "you're wrong, you're terrible and you suck and you need to quit smoking / stop working on your car / give your guns to the government", you're going to hit a huge amount of resistance compared with trying to make incremental changes and presenting a case for better lifestyle alternatives.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jeromenerf 5y ago
People have difficulties to accept change when innovations go from liberating to considered harmful in a decade. Cars, smartphones … What feels weird is the « reaction »: as environmental concerns progress, cars (and smartphones) are still being manufactured and marketed as more powerful, faster, shinier, brighter, … production costs are still dwarfing the energy saved by new models efficiency, by a lot. I like driving my roadster car. It has a rather humble 1.8l engine, I bought it second hand and I don’t commute with it.
- noduerme 5y ago
  This is true. I was always anti-smart phone and anti-social media. As well as being anti buying anything unnecessary. My car is 40 years old. But now my modest positions seem at odds with the holier than thou PC police, who indulge in all of the above and yet somehow feel morally superior enough to 'splain to me why no one should drive a car. This all goes back to not approaching people by telling them what you're against, because it makes even the most righteous person come off as a hypocrite.

dredmorbius 5y ago

The real key to this post is how to message and advocate effectively for major social change. (I totally missed this on my first read as well.) Cars, like much else in modern life, aren't purely functional objects and totems, but are very strongly linked with lifestyle, status, and identity. A campaign that directly attacks these ... probably won't go well. There have been similar campaigns in the recent past, though, which have been highly effective. The campaign against smoking, begun in earnest in 1961, is probably among the more successful. https://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/744d3maa3uqlxcitxabzxw.gif https://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Pro... That involved a lot of approaches. Education was one prong, but increasing costs, decreasing the opposition's abiity to propagandise (the tobacco firms), increasing costs, reducing the number of places where smoking was acceptable, changing attitudes toward whether or not smoking was "cool" or a status signal, etc., all contributed. It took literally decades. But it worked, with US rates now less than half their 1945 peak.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
fomine3 5y ago
In Tokyo, some young people now tend to think that not to have car is cool (that's now concern for big car brands). Just curious is there similar thought in Europe or other urbans. Suspected reasons: car isn't ecological, is obviously dangerous and takes responsibility, isn't so useful because there are great public transport (unless have children), or sour grapes because salary in japan is low compared to car price and parking in Tokyo.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  One of the biggest factors driving reductions in car use (ownership, but also driving) has been expense. For all that basic economics gets many things wrong, increasing price is a highly effective way of reducing a specific behaviour. Costs may be any of several factors. Purchase price is one, but that's relatively minor. Insurance, registration, parking, fuel, requirements to have (or have in the car) child-safety seats (an expense themselves, but also taking up room in the vehicle, possibly for little effective safety, see: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/car-seats/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/car-seats/), smog and other inspections, etc., etc. Eventually a tipping point is reached, and not using or even owning a car is the preferred option. Given the role of land use, transit, and other private-ownership alternatives (including ride hailing services / taxies), that's not a simple matter of price. But a set of policies working in concert can effect that kind of change.

fomine3 5y ago

How "just ban" won't work: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/world/europe/france-fuel-tax-yellow-vests.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/world/europe/france-fuel-...

holoduke 5y ago

I love cars. Not only how they look and work, but because it can bring me to places where other people don't usually go. It gives me the ultimate freedom feeling. Going far in car to some remote country/region is such a nice thing to do. I don't want to live in a city from where I rarely leave. I need my cars.

re-al 5y ago

I don't understand the emotion, or even the idea that I have to feel something about cars or roads. What is it to do with me, why should I care? Its not as if I can do anything about it. The governance structure provided us with road infrastructure in the past. We were sold this idea and developed our lives around it. Now the governance structure wants us to live in smart cities, with no cars. This allows for greater control and tighter management of the tax paying stock. No one gets to vote for this stuff. It is not a way of life I would choose - I don't like being manipulated. I'm not going to stand at the sidelines and clap these changes on. It is communitarianism - but its not a good thing.

dalbasal 5y ago

So... IDK. Intellectually, I agree with this. Applied to the personal sphere, a company, family or whatever... being pro something else is probably the way to go. As a macro-political goal... perhaps not. For a big, hairy example, look at revolutions, or politics generally. Take the American, French or other republican revolution. They were anti-King. Democratic republics were an afterthought, something to fill the void. The Communist Manifesto is notably light on communism. Half of it is anti capitalism. The other half is anti other versions of socialism. Most independence movements of the last century+ were nationalist by default, the actual motivating sentiment was anti imperialism. The hole in the ozone layer was reverse by being anti-cfl, not pro-replacements. Meanwhile, solution-focused movements like the overfishing haven't been very effective. It's not a pleasant thought, but I think people are just easier to rally against something than for something.

bttrfl 5y ago

This is a good advice but on gov level. Governments don't need to be anti car, they just need to stop being pro car and incentivise their use. Stop subsidies, stop tax benefits for both users/producers, stop building new roads, stop turning free spaces into parking lots etc. and be pro something else. Just make 99% of the car traffic infeasible (slow, expensive...) and market will come up with alternative ways to make 99% of activities that today require a car feasible without them.

devaler 5y ago

I’ve found that when it comes to their cars, people seem to get offended very easily (at least in my part of the U.S.). Case in point: I suggested physical traffic-calming solutions for my neighborhood in order to combat excessive speeding, and a community member said, “We don’t live in communist China.”

slifin 5y ago

It's fine to be anti car, I think the "concession" you do need to make is that the context is really important, I live in the middle of a busy city that really suffers from traffic problems When I'm talking about pedestrianising or bike lanes or e-scooters etc it's from the perspective of a busy city that does not have enough room for cars It's important to acknowledge that most car alternatives are not an option for people like farmers or people who live out in the sticks and so people in the country are typically not who I'm talking about when talking about anti car ideas

usrusr 5y ago

The car-dependent are so exceptionally good at spinning every pro-something into anti-car (unless it's pro car) that any attempted distinction between pro-something and anti-car is futile. Embrace the antagonism they force on you, be anti-car.

machinehermiter 5y ago

anti-car? people need to quit social media. It is rotting your brain.

11235813213455 5y ago

What I'd love is changing the road safety rules in favor of bikes (because bikes lanes can't do everything, sometimes they are terrible or not existing) 1. High priority vehicles firemen/police/amulance 2. Shared transports (bus/tram) 3. Bikes 4. Other motorized vehicles - cars Also reducing drastically driving speed to reduce risks

Ajedi32 5y ago

A big part of the problem is that all existing alternatives are objectively inferior on an individual level. Cars provide long or short distance uninterrupted point-to-point transportation in a private environment with climate control and a large cargo capacity. Every alternative is worse in some or all of these ways, and the few advantages they do offer are usually only worth those drawbacks in rather niche circumstances.

specialist 5y ago

Offense beats defense. This OC's advice is completely, utterly, logically, emotionally, psychologically, economically, and in all other ways thoroughly correct. Any one who disagrees has obviously not done any policy work. Other perks when advocating for progress: Messaging is generally easier. If you're explaining, you're losing. Focus! Avoid getting dragged into pedantic slap fights, distracting side quests, arguing about details and semantics. It's hard to win fights on enemy turf. Everyone is already complaining about everything. Be the one who has a plan, something positive to say. Honey vs vinegar.

hootbootscoot 5y ago

What mirrors my visceral full-body negative reaction to large swathes of asphalt and often extremely noisy and apparently aggressive (look at modern autos front-ends and tell me they are not designed to look like predators) swarms of vehicles speeding by as quickly as they possibly can, most emitting vast clouds of bad-smelling exhaust gasses that are carcinogenic and contributing to climate change as well as general poor air quality for the unfortunate humans nearby, anyway, I was saying: what mirrors my revulsion at the inelegance of cars and their road support system is a love of treelined paths. A love of trees. A love of well designed botanical gardens. A love of 100 year old walnut trees, or mango trees large enough to provide shade for an entire housing block. We can have a paradise on earth here, as soon as it stops being "cool" and "normal" to turn this planet into a wasteland. We can design our transport around a sensible way of life that doesn't involve all the human ants having to shuffle themselves 100km from their dwellings each day, in pursuit of informatic careers of deep personal meaning. etc.

hootbootscoot 5y ago
I will also propose separating transport planes. There is no excuse for mixing cars and pedestrians in an inner city. I see no viable excuse for traffic lights and forcing petrol-burning vehicles to idle. All car traffic that crosses with living spaces should be in tunnels etc, and all flow controlled as in highway entrance/exits and roundabouts, etc.