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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 hav

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
      Can’t work, it has to be the other way around or there is no transition path: first convert a subset of car infrastructure to make alternatives more approachable / desirable, then iterate on that to reduce the space given to cars further. That is essentially what the netherlands have been doing for decades.
      - lwansbrough 5y ago
        Well, the first step IMO is to eliminate single family zoning in favour of mixed use zoning and legalize middle housing, that should cut down the need for cars substantially in most North American cities. Then anyone who still needs a car can be inconvenienced by stricter regulations.
        masklinn 5y ago
        Sure i was kinda assuming that anyway, but it’s nowhere near sufficient as demonstrated by… pretty much everywhere outside of NA.
        jcims 5y ago
        This is one of those things that would meet the criteria of the article. Don't fight traffic, create opportunities for people to open stores and restaurants inside housing development.
  - fouc 5y ago
    There's a well known effect, called induced demand, where building more roads cause traffic to increase. Doing the reverse will decrease traffic, then transit won't have to scale up nearly as much as we might assume.
- noduerme 5y ago
  > Being anti smoking worked Really? About 30% of adults still smoke where I live, and all the teens and 20-somethings use vape pens. What's the definition of "worked" in this context?
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    It's down to 14% in the UK, falling from 45% in the seventies.
  - pedrosorio 5y ago
    In the US, 14% of adults smoke. In California it’s under 12%. Among households with an income above $100k it’s 7% [0]. If you belong to a certain demographic that is prevalent in this forum (upper middle class in California), the above is pretty much true. I can’t think of any person I regularly interact with who smokes. Globally, it’s a matter of time. [0] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/adult_data/cig_smoking/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/adul...
    - noduerme 5y ago
      I looked up the official rate where I live (18.1%), but I find it hard to believe, since virtually everyone I know smokes, at least casually. And the few who don't smoke, vape. Why do you care? Everyone knows the risks by now. It's never going away. You should find better things to do with your time than trying to control other people's behavior. Also, I'm originally from Cali and I make over $100k a year, but I'm hardly a unicorn since all my California friends bum cigarettes from me whenever I see them, even though they all "quit" years ago. California is just a miserable habitat where you can't enjoy a beer and a smoke at the same time unless you belong to a private club. And they all lie on the surveys.
      - pedrosorio 5y ago
        Why do I care? I grew up in Portugal with asthma at a time when indoor smoking was allowed and prevalent. The progress in the past few decades has been amazing for my quality of life and that of all other people (specially children with smoking parents) who were regularly subjected to 2nd hand smoke from a young age through no fault of their own. EDIT: also it’s unclear to me how you got the message that I was “trying to control other people’s behavior” from my first comment
- lucideer 5y ago
  > we can't feasibly just remove cars workout replacing them with something This isn't really true though. Firstly just as "banning smoking" hasn't really meant banning smoking—people still smoke—being anti-car doesn't mean eliminating car ownership. In a pro-car world, if I'm a developer building a shopping centre one of my primary considerations is parking. Immediately I need maybe over triple the area of land to build, or significant increase in investment if I'm going underground. Both of these options limit me severely in where I can build: I'll go for an area with cheaper land value, and larger land areas available. Access is further down my list of concerns. In an anti-car world, I build my shopping centre where people live. Many can walk there. There's a greater array of existing public transport already servicing it (and density means such services are likely to be improved w/out the need for lobbying). Some cycle there. Proximity means visits are more likely to be shorter & more frequent: this increases turnover of parking spaces for the much-smaller number of people who do still need to drive. There are countless other similar examples of problems that solve themselves when car infrastructure is removed from the equation. Yes we need other solutions in some cases, but just removing cars is enough of a "solution" in itself in many cases. What people don't realise about cars is that car infrastructure already causes so many problems we've just internalised and accepted as norms. An anti-car approach benefits from those problems being solved implicitly.
  - etripe 5y ago
    While you largely have a point, I think you're perhaps a little too optimistic about the big picture, especially when factoring in timelines. Simply saying no to cars doesn't solve the problem of transporting goods of any kind, e.g. a family load of food shopping for the week, furniture or building materials when doing a house renovation. And while covid has nudged employment towards a more decentralised model, some countries (the US comes to mind, especially in rural areas or AFAIK cities like LA) don't really have a public transport alternative, for instance.
    - ArekDymalski 5y ago
      >family load of food shopping for the week I think that shopping for the week is a result of car ownership, not the other way. I grew up in a family without a car and buying fresh stuff from the local shop everyday was normal. I think I developed the habit of weekly shopping when I turned 25 and started more demanding job. In case of furniture/moving - that's something that could be done be services. Etc.
- pizza234 5y ago
  > The difference is that people actually need to get around This is really context-dependent. Some cities/countries do have efficient enough public transport, and/or they're flat enough to make bikes usable. In such contexts, using a bike is a realistic choice (like mine). This goes even for families with children (in some countries, parents who don't want to depend on cars use cargo bikes). I know that in some countries/cultures, people will use the car even to avoid a 5 minutes walk (I know it for a fact; I'm familiar with that), with the result of massive traffic and pollution.
  - noduerme 5y ago
    Mass traffic isn't really the result of a 5-minute drive to McDonald's. It's the result of people only being able to afford single-family houses 1-2 hours away from their workplaces, and either having no commuter trains to get them there, or having city jobs that require driving in a car. For instance, in LA a lot of Uber drivers commute in from an hour away. Contractors, roofers, plumbers, all commute in. People who live in the city may actually get to work by biking or walking, but they aren't the vast majority stuck in traffic on the highways in and out every day. The problem really is the sprawling nature of the economy which necessitates spending hours in a car, not that people are so lazy they can't walk for five minutes.
    - thefr0g 5y ago
      > It's the result of people only being able to afford single-family houses 1-2 hours away from their workplaces Idk how this works in the USA but shurely if you can afford a single family house you could easily rent an apartment near to where you actually work?
      - jen20 5y ago
        To quickly disabuse you of that notion: it absolutely does not work like that.
      - noduerme 5y ago
        In the US, workers in the service industry in large cities generally can't afford rent within walking or biking distance of where they work. In most cities public transit to and from the outlying areas is slow and bad simply because of the size. The greater LA metro area is about 3/4 the size of the Netherlands, and many people need to commute all the way across it every day. Contractors who need space for tools and equipment and make $100-200k per year can't live in an apartment with their kids and can't afford houses in the city. A family of four making $100k/year could barely get a small 2 bedroom apartment in near-ish suburbs and they would still need multiple vehicles for work. Once you get 90 minutes from the city center, you can afford a 3-bedroom house and two cars. It's the only rational choice. But once you're out there, you need a car even to get to the nearest train station.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- johnisgood 5y ago
  > Being anti smoking worked because there was no need for a replacement Assuming it is true, is vaping a part of "smoking", among other replacements such as nicotine gums and whatnot? I read a couple of books on addiction. All of them say that you do need to find a replacement, a healthier one.
- rainonmoon 5y ago
  > there was no need for a replacement Spoken like someone who's never smoked!
noduerme 5y ago
All you got out of that anti-smoking campaign was empty bars and a dearth of social life. You can take your babies to a bar now, where no one wants to go be around your babies. I'll never understand some peoples' quest to infantilize the adult population just so they can claim victory. In places you don't go, and don't know, and obviously aren't invited to, everyone still smokes.
- yaacov 5y ago
  Seriously curious, where do you live where you can take a baby to a bar? I’ve never heard of such a thing.
  - Doctor_Fegg 5y ago
    You can take a baby into most pubs in Britain.
- AlotOfReading 5y ago
  Smokers rarely consider how their choices force the rest of us to deal with them. My partner shouldn't have to carry an inhaler, but public smoking forces her to. There shouldn't have been epidemics of children with diseases caused by secondhand exposure, but smoking made sure it happened. I have no problem with smokers lighting up in private airtight boxes, but don't force the waste products into everyone else's lungs by smoking in public.
  - noduerme 5y ago
    Airtight boxes is punitive, which is what typical puritans enjoy imposing on any sort of pleasurable activity. Open air is sufficient for your comfort. You can move away down the street. Don't forget your inhaler, you'll need it as you walk past thousands of vehicles idling in traffic.
    - AlotOfReading 5y ago
      I didn't say the issue was necessarily on the street. My partner gets frustrated that she can't open the windows, because street smoke on evenings wafts straight into our living room and gives her coughing fits. Is your suggestion that we should never open the windows in our own house?
hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
The USA has a very poor public transport infrastructure, it's very difficult to live without a car, and in some areas it's plain impossible. Build the infrastructure first, then we can talk about reducing the number of cars.
- lucideer 5y ago
  That's somewhat putting the cart before the horse. In high-density areas, the existence of cars & car-supporting infrastructure are active barriers to public transport improvement. If there's any genuine desire for improvement in public transport in the US, a holistic approach has to be on the table. Anything else is just an excuse not to bother.
- xvector 5y ago
  If people are encouraged to dump their net worth into vehicles then we will never solve the problem due to the fact that most people engage in sunk cost fallacy with their purchases, especially large ones.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- adrianN 5y ago
  It's impossible to build the infrastructure without taking away space from cars and/or drastically changing zoning.
- yesco 5y ago
  I think it's important to emphasize that, in the US, it's not "some" areas that are just plain impossible to live in without driving; it's the overwhelming majority. Time and time again I see Europeans and even some people who live in the US (but who have only lived in Cities) who completely underestimate the magnitude of this.
xvector 5y ago
[delete]
- DoreenMichele 5y ago
  Being inoffensive and avoiding confrontation aren't the same thing. You can politely engage with people who don't see eye to eye with you. It's done pretty often on HN. If you delete your reply to this, I will try to delete mine and maybe the whole thing can disappear.
  - xvector 5y ago
    Agreed, I recognized this after a few seconds of more thought. Tried to delete my comment but it wasn't possible, since it looks like your reply caught me before I could!
bayindirh 5y ago
> Cars are the problem, point it out. Umm, no. In my case, cars are not the problem. They're the result. My city lacks decent and efficient transport from my home to places I go (office, university, etc.), and the lack of transportation is valid for many people, so we get cars. If the same transportation infrastructure present in Barcelona, Amsterdam, Stockholm or London was present in my city, I'd just take the options and maximize my walk too. I may again have a car for trips, etc. but, it'd be used much less certainly. So, I dislike the traffic, pollution, noise, parking problems and all, and I want to be a part of the solution, OTOH I have to live, have to show up for work, have to go to shopping and take all that stuff home.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > My city lacks decent and efficient transport from my home to places I go Because cars. Yes, cars are also the result. It’s a self-sustaining cycle that takes active intervention that appears suboptimal in short-term analysis to break out of.
  - bayindirh 5y ago
    > Because cars. Again nope, much more complicated than that. My city is not flat. It's the opposite. Also bad city planning, wrong population projections and, wrong prioritization of city investments play a big role too. We're late in building underground. Some of the most populated parts of the city has great elevation changes, so underground is not feasible, etc. etc.
    - masklinn 5y ago
      You have not specified where your city is, but if it’s in the US then > Also bad city planning, wrong population projections and, wrong prioritization of city investments play a big role too. These are usually the consequence of a car-centric culture when it’s not racism (it’s commonly both, with the car centric culture and the racism making an alliance in the 40s and 50s). The US destroyed many neighbourhoods and city centers to make room for cars and car infrastructures (e.g. huge through highways).
bborud 5y ago
That's not a valid comparison. Mobility and transportation is a necessity for a functioning society. Your food doesn't make it onto the table without being transported there. Are you going to fetch the eggs out at the farm on foot? No, seriously, I am asking you a direct question: how are you going to transport food if you are not going to use any cars or trucks anywhere along the process? Cigarettes are not a necessity for a functioning society. Stick also doesn't work as well as carrot. You could tax fuel to discourage "unwanted behavior", but it doesn't have the consequences you want. It drives up prices, which affects the population unevenly. I can afford at least one doubling in fuel price without it affecting me. Perhaps even two. Do you think the guy who has to drive 2 hours to work from the middle of nowhere to work in an Amazon fulfilment center can afford this? Electric cars becoming a viable option for more people is a positive change. That's how we solve problems: by creating better alternatives. And if they do not emerge easily: help these industries along by providing them tax breaks and help. I live in a country that has some of the highest gas prices in the world. High taxation of gas did _nothing_ to reduce the use of cars. It might have made the needle shiver a bit, but it didn't move it. I also happen to live in the country that has the most electric cars per capita. Electric has 70% market share among new cars sold. In 20 years, you will not even be able to buy a new gas powered car here. That's change. That's the all-important break between hydrocarbons and land-based transport. That's the hard part. This didn't happen due to gas tax or any other disincentives. It _ONLY_ happened by providing a better alternative. By cutting tax on electric cars so the market could reach the critical point where electric is viable. Now that we're there, we can slowly start to roll off the tax cuts as prices on electric vehicles drop. It is tempting to piss on the things you don't like. But just being against things and not providing viable alternatives is not a plan. It is also not a plan to have vague dreams of things you cannot execute on. (If you think this constitutes a plan, ask the Chinese about "the great leap forward" or the Russians why the Soviet industry didn't become the envy of the world). It doesn't create any lasting change. Lasting change comes from providing people with better alternatives and the enthusiastic participation of the masses.
- roenxi 5y ago
  Mobility and transport by car aren't necessary for a functioning society. Trains, buses, bicycles and walking can build a perfectly functional society. It'd be disruptive, certainly. Smoking was taking a group of people and telling that they can't do something they want to do. Banning cars would be similar. People don't really seem to be honest about how arbitrary the anti-smoking campaign is. I'd much rather people smoked than drank.
kewrkewm53 5y ago
Cars and private car ownership are not a problem. Cars using fossil fuels, and unnecessary private car traffic in large cities are. Electric vehicles solve the first problem, better public transport the second. For the vast majority of people living in the countryside car ownership is a necessity, at least as long as city dwellers aren't willing to pay for government public transport to rural areas. Thus, being anti-car is idiotic since cons of cars outweigh the pros only in certain contexts.
- hexedpackets 5y ago
  Electric cars still generate a massive amount of pollution. Brake pads and tire wear in particular are large sources for every type of car.
  - mwint 5y ago
    Tire wear yes, brake pads no. I drive a Leaf and use the friction brakes so infrequently that they get sticky if I don’t switch to neutral and do a hard stop now and then. Regen braking is amazing.
- thefr0g 5y ago
  > at least as long as city dwellers aren't willing to pay for government public transport to rural areas Why can't the rural population pay for that themselves? If each of them can afford a car shurely they could collectively fund public transport themselves?
  - harpersealtako 5y ago
    Public transportation is more expensive for rural areas than urban areas because they are more spread out. At some point it becomes impractical, either because the service is unreliable/slow by necessity or because it's not practical for a bus to drive 10 extra miles down the road to get service to everybody. On another note, I'm still waiting for the hardcore anti-car people (the ones who want to ban car ownership and think rural people don't need cars, which I recognize are a loud minority) to tell me how I'm supposed to go public land deer hunting without a car/truck.
tomjen3 5y ago
Had there been more money to invest in vaping, it is likely more people would have stopped smoking earlier. So I am not sure I get your point.
RickJWagner 5y ago
Maybe where you live. Where I live, cars are a necessity. The planet belongs to all of us, rural people don't make that much pollution. So I'm fine with car-bashing where it's not needed for decent living. Where cars are needed, they should be left alone or else we're legislating a lower standard of living for peer residents.
masterphilo 5y ago
This is just a case of false equivalency. Smoking and car-usage are completely different phenomena and the one should not be used make judgements about the other. You're going to have to do more than that to convince me & others why car usage is that bad, sorry.
specialist 5y ago
> We need to completely revamp how we commute... Very interesting. What's this glorious post-car future you're PROposing? Please say more.

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
    Can’t work, it has to be the other way around or there is no transition path: first convert a subset of car infrastructure to make alternatives more approachable / desirable, then iterate on that to reduce the space given to cars further. That is essentially what the netherlands have been doing for decades.
    - lwansbrough 5y ago
      Well, the first step IMO is to eliminate single family zoning in favour of mixed use zoning and legalize middle housing, that should cut down the need for cars substantially in most North American cities. Then anyone who still needs a car can be inconvenienced by stricter regulations.
      - masklinn 5y ago
        Sure i was kinda assuming that anyway, but it’s nowhere near sufficient as demonstrated by… pretty much everywhere outside of NA.
      - jcims 5y ago
        This is one of those things that would meet the criteria of the article. Don't fight traffic, create opportunities for people to open stores and restaurants inside housing development.
- fouc 5y ago
  There's a well known effect, called induced demand, where building more roads cause traffic to increase. Doing the reverse will decrease traffic, then transit won't have to scale up nearly as much as we might assume.
noduerme 5y ago
> Being anti smoking worked Really? About 30% of adults still smoke where I live, and all the teens and 20-somethings use vape pens. What's the definition of "worked" in this context?
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  It's down to 14% in the UK, falling from 45% in the seventies.
- pedrosorio 5y ago
  In the US, 14% of adults smoke. In California it’s under 12%. Among households with an income above $100k it’s 7% [0]. If you belong to a certain demographic that is prevalent in this forum (upper middle class in California), the above is pretty much true. I can’t think of any person I regularly interact with who smokes. Globally, it’s a matter of time. [0] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/adult_data/cig_smoking/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/adul...
  - noduerme 5y ago
    I looked up the official rate where I live (18.1%), but I find it hard to believe, since virtually everyone I know smokes, at least casually. And the few who don't smoke, vape. Why do you care? Everyone knows the risks by now. It's never going away. You should find better things to do with your time than trying to control other people's behavior. Also, I'm originally from Cali and I make over $100k a year, but I'm hardly a unicorn since all my California friends bum cigarettes from me whenever I see them, even though they all "quit" years ago. California is just a miserable habitat where you can't enjoy a beer and a smoke at the same time unless you belong to a private club. And they all lie on the surveys.
    - pedrosorio 5y ago
      Why do I care? I grew up in Portugal with asthma at a time when indoor smoking was allowed and prevalent. The progress in the past few decades has been amazing for my quality of life and that of all other people (specially children with smoking parents) who were regularly subjected to 2nd hand smoke from a young age through no fault of their own. EDIT: also it’s unclear to me how you got the message that I was “trying to control other people’s behavior” from my first comment
lucideer 5y ago
> we can't feasibly just remove cars workout replacing them with something This isn't really true though. Firstly just as "banning smoking" hasn't really meant banning smoking—people still smoke—being anti-car doesn't mean eliminating car ownership. In a pro-car world, if I'm a developer building a shopping centre one of my primary considerations is parking. Immediately I need maybe over triple the area of land to build, or significant increase in investment if I'm going underground. Both of these options limit me severely in where I can build: I'll go for an area with cheaper land value, and larger land areas available. Access is further down my list of concerns. In an anti-car world, I build my shopping centre where people live. Many can walk there. There's a greater array of existing public transport already servicing it (and density means such services are likely to be improved w/out the need for lobbying). Some cycle there. Proximity means visits are more likely to be shorter & more frequent: this increases turnover of parking spaces for the much-smaller number of people who do still need to drive. There are countless other similar examples of problems that solve themselves when car infrastructure is removed from the equation. Yes we need other solutions in some cases, but just removing cars is enough of a "solution" in itself in many cases. What people don't realise about cars is that car infrastructure already causes so many problems we've just internalised and accepted as norms. An anti-car approach benefits from those problems being solved implicitly.
- etripe 5y ago
  While you largely have a point, I think you're perhaps a little too optimistic about the big picture, especially when factoring in timelines. Simply saying no to cars doesn't solve the problem of transporting goods of any kind, e.g. a family load of food shopping for the week, furniture or building materials when doing a house renovation. And while covid has nudged employment towards a more decentralised model, some countries (the US comes to mind, especially in rural areas or AFAIK cities like LA) don't really have a public transport alternative, for instance.
  - ArekDymalski 5y ago
    >family load of food shopping for the week I think that shopping for the week is a result of car ownership, not the other way. I grew up in a family without a car and buying fresh stuff from the local shop everyday was normal. I think I developed the habit of weekly shopping when I turned 25 and started more demanding job. In case of furniture/moving - that's something that could be done be services. Etc.
pizza234 5y ago
> The difference is that people actually need to get around This is really context-dependent. Some cities/countries do have efficient enough public transport, and/or they're flat enough to make bikes usable. In such contexts, using a bike is a realistic choice (like mine). This goes even for families with children (in some countries, parents who don't want to depend on cars use cargo bikes). I know that in some countries/cultures, people will use the car even to avoid a 5 minutes walk (I know it for a fact; I'm familiar with that), with the result of massive traffic and pollution.
- noduerme 5y ago
  Mass traffic isn't really the result of a 5-minute drive to McDonald's. It's the result of people only being able to afford single-family houses 1-2 hours away from their workplaces, and either having no commuter trains to get them there, or having city jobs that require driving in a car. For instance, in LA a lot of Uber drivers commute in from an hour away. Contractors, roofers, plumbers, all commute in. People who live in the city may actually get to work by biking or walking, but they aren't the vast majority stuck in traffic on the highways in and out every day. The problem really is the sprawling nature of the economy which necessitates spending hours in a car, not that people are so lazy they can't walk for five minutes.
  - thefr0g 5y ago
    > It's the result of people only being able to afford single-family houses 1-2 hours away from their workplaces Idk how this works in the USA but shurely if you can afford a single family house you could easily rent an apartment near to where you actually work?
    - jen20 5y ago
      To quickly disabuse you of that notion: it absolutely does not work like that.
    - noduerme 5y ago
      In the US, workers in the service industry in large cities generally can't afford rent within walking or biking distance of where they work. In most cities public transit to and from the outlying areas is slow and bad simply because of the size. The greater LA metro area is about 3/4 the size of the Netherlands, and many people need to commute all the way across it every day. Contractors who need space for tools and equipment and make $100-200k per year can't live in an apartment with their kids and can't afford houses in the city. A family of four making $100k/year could barely get a small 2 bedroom apartment in near-ish suburbs and they would still need multiple vehicles for work. Once you get 90 minutes from the city center, you can afford a 3-bedroom house and two cars. It's the only rational choice. But once you're out there, you need a car even to get to the nearest train station.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
johnisgood 5y ago
> Being anti smoking worked because there was no need for a replacement Assuming it is true, is vaping a part of "smoking", among other replacements such as nicotine gums and whatnot? I read a couple of books on addiction. All of them say that you do need to find a replacement, a healthier one.
rainonmoon 5y ago
> there was no need for a replacement Spoken like someone who's never smoked!

noduerme 5y ago

All you got out of that anti-smoking campaign was empty bars and a dearth of social life. You can take your babies to a bar now, where no one wants to go be around your babies. I'll never understand some peoples' quest to infantilize the adult population just so they can claim victory. In places you don't go, and don't know, and obviously aren't invited to, everyone still smokes.

yaacov 5y ago
Seriously curious, where do you live where you can take a baby to a bar? I’ve never heard of such a thing.
- Doctor_Fegg 5y ago
  You can take a baby into most pubs in Britain.
AlotOfReading 5y ago
Smokers rarely consider how their choices force the rest of us to deal with them. My partner shouldn't have to carry an inhaler, but public smoking forces her to. There shouldn't have been epidemics of children with diseases caused by secondhand exposure, but smoking made sure it happened. I have no problem with smokers lighting up in private airtight boxes, but don't force the waste products into everyone else's lungs by smoking in public.
- noduerme 5y ago
  Airtight boxes is punitive, which is what typical puritans enjoy imposing on any sort of pleasurable activity. Open air is sufficient for your comfort. You can move away down the street. Don't forget your inhaler, you'll need it as you walk past thousands of vehicles idling in traffic.
  - AlotOfReading 5y ago
    I didn't say the issue was necessarily on the street. My partner gets frustrated that she can't open the windows, because street smoke on evenings wafts straight into our living room and gives her coughing fits. Is your suggestion that we should never open the windows in our own house?

hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago

The USA has a very poor public transport infrastructure, it's very difficult to live without a car, and in some areas it's plain impossible. Build the infrastructure first, then we can talk about reducing the number of cars.

lucideer 5y ago
That's somewhat putting the cart before the horse. In high-density areas, the existence of cars & car-supporting infrastructure are active barriers to public transport improvement. If there's any genuine desire for improvement in public transport in the US, a holistic approach has to be on the table. Anything else is just an excuse not to bother.
xvector 5y ago
If people are encouraged to dump their net worth into vehicles then we will never solve the problem due to the fact that most people engage in sunk cost fallacy with their purchases, especially large ones.
deleted 5y ago
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adrianN 5y ago
It's impossible to build the infrastructure without taking away space from cars and/or drastically changing zoning.
yesco 5y ago
I think it's important to emphasize that, in the US, it's not "some" areas that are just plain impossible to live in without driving; it's the overwhelming majority. Time and time again I see Europeans and even some people who live in the US (but who have only lived in Cities) who completely underestimate the magnitude of this.

xvector 5y ago

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DoreenMichele 5y ago
Being inoffensive and avoiding confrontation aren't the same thing. You can politely engage with people who don't see eye to eye with you. It's done pretty often on HN. If you delete your reply to this, I will try to delete mine and maybe the whole thing can disappear.
- xvector 5y ago
  Agreed, I recognized this after a few seconds of more thought. Tried to delete my comment but it wasn't possible, since it looks like your reply caught me before I could!

bayindirh 5y ago

> Cars are the problem, point it out. Umm, no. In my case, cars are not the problem. They're the result. My city lacks decent and efficient transport from my home to places I go (office, university, etc.), and the lack of transportation is valid for many people, so we get cars. If the same transportation infrastructure present in Barcelona, Amsterdam, Stockholm or London was present in my city, I'd just take the options and maximize my walk too. I may again have a car for trips, etc. but, it'd be used much less certainly. So, I dislike the traffic, pollution, noise, parking problems and all, and I want to be a part of the solution, OTOH I have to live, have to show up for work, have to go to shopping and take all that stuff home.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> My city lacks decent and efficient transport from my home to places I go Because cars. Yes, cars are also the result. It’s a self-sustaining cycle that takes active intervention that appears suboptimal in short-term analysis to break out of.
- bayindirh 5y ago
  > Because cars. Again nope, much more complicated than that. My city is not flat. It's the opposite. Also bad city planning, wrong population projections and, wrong prioritization of city investments play a big role too. We're late in building underground. Some of the most populated parts of the city has great elevation changes, so underground is not feasible, etc. etc.
  - masklinn 5y ago
    You have not specified where your city is, but if it’s in the US then > Also bad city planning, wrong population projections and, wrong prioritization of city investments play a big role too. These are usually the consequence of a car-centric culture when it’s not racism (it’s commonly both, with the car centric culture and the racism making an alliance in the 40s and 50s). The US destroyed many neighbourhoods and city centers to make room for cars and car infrastructures (e.g. huge through highways).

bborud 5y ago

That's not a valid comparison. Mobility and transportation is a necessity for a functioning society. Your food doesn't make it onto the table without being transported there. Are you going to fetch the eggs out at the farm on foot? No, seriously, I am asking you a direct question: how are you going to transport food if you are not going to use any cars or trucks anywhere along the process? Cigarettes are not a necessity for a functioning society. Stick also doesn't work as well as carrot. You could tax fuel to discourage "unwanted behavior", but it doesn't have the consequences you want. It drives up prices, which affects the population unevenly. I can afford at least one doubling in fuel price without it affecting me. Perhaps even two. Do you think the guy who has to drive 2 hours to work from the middle of nowhere to work in an Amazon fulfilment center can afford this? Electric cars becoming a viable option for more people is a positive change. That's how we solve problems: by creating better alternatives. And if they do not emerge easily: help these industries along by providing them tax breaks and help. I live in a country that has some of the highest gas prices in the world. High taxation of gas did _nothing_ to reduce the use of cars. It might have made the needle shiver a bit, but it didn't move it. I also happen to live in the country that has the most electric cars per capita. Electric has 70% market share among new cars sold. In 20 years, you will not even be able to buy a new gas powered car here. That's change. That's the all-important break between hydrocarbons and land-based transport. That's the hard part. This didn't happen due to gas tax or any other disincentives. It _ONLY_ happened by providing a better alternative. By cutting tax on electric cars so the market could reach the critical point where electric is viable. Now that we're there, we can slowly start to roll off the tax cuts as prices on electric vehicles drop. It is tempting to piss on the things you don't like. But just being against things and not providing viable alternatives is not a plan. It is also not a plan to have vague dreams of things you cannot execute on. (If you think this constitutes a plan, ask the Chinese about "the great leap forward" or the Russians why the Soviet industry didn't become the envy of the world). It doesn't create any lasting change. Lasting change comes from providing people with better alternatives and the enthusiastic participation of the masses.

roenxi 5y ago
Mobility and transport by car aren't necessary for a functioning society. Trains, buses, bicycles and walking can build a perfectly functional society. It'd be disruptive, certainly. Smoking was taking a group of people and telling that they can't do something they want to do. Banning cars would be similar. People don't really seem to be honest about how arbitrary the anti-smoking campaign is. I'd much rather people smoked than drank.

kewrkewm53 5y ago

Cars and private car ownership are not a problem. Cars using fossil fuels, and unnecessary private car traffic in large cities are. Electric vehicles solve the first problem, better public transport the second. For the vast majority of people living in the countryside car ownership is a necessity, at least as long as city dwellers aren't willing to pay for government public transport to rural areas. Thus, being anti-car is idiotic since cons of cars outweigh the pros only in certain contexts.

hexedpackets 5y ago
Electric cars still generate a massive amount of pollution. Brake pads and tire wear in particular are large sources for every type of car.
- mwint 5y ago
  Tire wear yes, brake pads no. I drive a Leaf and use the friction brakes so infrequently that they get sticky if I don’t switch to neutral and do a hard stop now and then. Regen braking is amazing.
thefr0g 5y ago
> at least as long as city dwellers aren't willing to pay for government public transport to rural areas Why can't the rural population pay for that themselves? If each of them can afford a car shurely they could collectively fund public transport themselves?
- harpersealtako 5y ago
  Public transportation is more expensive for rural areas than urban areas because they are more spread out. At some point it becomes impractical, either because the service is unreliable/slow by necessity or because it's not practical for a bus to drive 10 extra miles down the road to get service to everybody. On another note, I'm still waiting for the hardcore anti-car people (the ones who want to ban car ownership and think rural people don't need cars, which I recognize are a loud minority) to tell me how I'm supposed to go public land deer hunting without a car/truck.

tomjen3 5y ago

Had there been more money to invest in vaping, it is likely more people would have stopped smoking earlier. So I am not sure I get your point.

RickJWagner 5y ago

Maybe where you live. Where I live, cars are a necessity. The planet belongs to all of us, rural people don't make that much pollution. So I'm fine with car-bashing where it's not needed for decent living. Where cars are needed, they should be left alone or else we're legislating a lower standard of living for peer residents.

masterphilo 5y ago

This is just a case of false equivalency. Smoking and car-usage are completely different phenomena and the one should not be used make judgements about the other. You're going to have to do more than that to convince me & others why car usage is that bad, sorry.

specialist 5y ago

> We need to completely revamp how we commute... Very interesting. What's this glorious post-car future you're PROposing? Please say more.