3 ms·

Look you are arguing about the parameters, so I guess you acknowledge there is a trade off. Maybe in one city it's 2 miles you are willing to walk. Maybe in ano

by rsj_hn 5y ago

Look you are arguing about the parameters, so I guess you acknowledge there is a trade off. Maybe in one city it's 2 miles you are willing to walk. Maybe in another, only 1 mile, or 4 miles. Point being, there is a reason people don't walk everywhere, which is that there is a space/time trade off. Once you understand this trade off, you'll also understand why we give more room to cars than to pedestrians, and why people walk short distances but not long distances. And I haven't even begun to model all the positive externalities of vehicles -- everything from letting trucks filled with goods stock your "local" coffeeshop, and workers to drive to that coffeeshop. And when the plumbing gets backed up or the ice-machine needs repair, someone will drive to that coffee shop -- right by your house -- and fix it, all so you can have a walkable neighborhood in which you can sip coffee and complain about cars. And there are other positive externalities including more price competition and thus cheaper goods, reduction in geographic monopolies, increases in homeownership rates, etc. I say this as someone who doesn't even own a car, but I recognize that I am extremely privileged to be able to work from anywhere and live in an expensive urban center where everyone spends long hours in their cars driving to me and catering to my needs, from delivering my groceries and packages to driving from the burbs to my neighborhood to cook me dinner. I am at the top of a huge pyramid reliant on vehicles -- and I know it. I'm not going to say "Let them eat cake". A good life-tip is that if you ever come up with some model of society that makes everyone look like they are doing something irrational, then odds are that your model is wrong, not that society is wrong. It can happen that you really are smarter than the system and that you've predicted all the important long term consequences of your proposals and correctly weighed them -- but it almost never does. And not for something as obvious as sidewalks being able to hold more people than cars per square foot. We need far fewer would-be social optimizers, and far more humility in these discussions, as our world is flooded with bad models and bad ideas.

Wowfunhappy 5y ago
> A good tip is that if you ever come up with some model of society that makes everyone look like they are doing something irrational, then odds are that your model is wrong, not that society is wrong. Well, but it could also be a case of "tragedy of the commons". Everyone is acting rationally on an individual level, but a collective change would be to everyone's benefit. I know people who drive big SUVs even though gas is more expensive not because they like big SUVs, but because they're worried if they don't drive a big SUV, they're more likely to die in a crash with someone who does. The result is, of course, even more SUVs.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  Yes, there can be some tragedy of the commons issues, but a lot of the time, that's really an issue of a stable versus unstable equilibrium. You would be surprised by how many people insist on an unstable equilibrium and ask government to try to stabilize it, which often ends up being quite expensive. But it does happen. However most tragedy of the commons issues are not new and there are already established ways of dealing with them. In the specific case of SUVs, almost all SUVs sold are actually lifted sedans. They don't have much worse mileage or weigh more than the corresponding sedans. Nor are they better in crashes. It's more of a culture war item where some people really hate those who drive the SUVs -- soccer moms, etc. Here the issue is that a lower center of gravity (and a stiffer ride) creates better handling, but an SUV is more comfortable and is easier to get in and out of. And it usually features a soft suspension. So there are a lot of car enthusiasts that hate SUVs because it's a rejection of their values, and a lot of Europeans that prefer wagons to SUVs are offended by someone wanting to sit higher up. Now yes, there is a situation in which higher cars make it more valuable to sit higher up, but that difference of being 1 foot higher doesn't really destroy visibility, it's psychological. The most popular SUV -- RAV4 has a height of 5.6 feet -- whereas the most popular sedan of 2020 (Camry) has a height of 4.77 feet. That 1 foot difference is not going to destroy visibility and does not represent some out of control thing. The difference in weight is about 100 pounds (3500 for Rav4 and 3400 for Camry). RAV4 gets 30mpg combined -- same as the Camry. These are not huge differences to justify the rage many have at SUVs. Just give the SUV in front of you a bit more room and your visibility will be fine, nor does the RAV4 force other people to get a RAV4 due to collisions.
  - msrenee 5y ago
    I think I and most people around here have a different definition of an SUV than you. I'd call a RAV4 a crossover. Kind of an SUV but kind of not. You say that most SUVs are lifted sedans, but I'd argue that SUVs, at least originally, and the ones I would consider a problem, are built on a light truck chassis. I'm pretty sure most people don't have half as much of a problem with RAV4s as they do with Sequoias. Add in the F150 and it's pretty sketchy driving a civic in some places I've lived.
noahtallen 5y ago
> Point being, there is a reason people don't walk everywhere, which is that there is a space/time trade off. While this is right at a surface level, I think it’s more accurate to say that people don’t walk everywhere because in most cases, they cannot. In every North American city, if you step just a bit out of the urban core, or even across the urban core, it will be very difficult to walk to where you need to go. This means that nearly every North American is dependent on a car by default. There is an ingrained car culture that makes change difficult. I would say that car dependency is a result of our city design, rather than the result of cars being good. It doesn’t have to be this way, it didn’t used to be this way, and it isn’t this way in many parts of the world. Just because cars are a very convenient mode of transportation doesn’t mean that the changes required to support have been positive. There are some very extreme negative externalities: - Extreme land use requirements. Not only do you need huge roads, but you need huge parking lots everywhere. Nearly half of all land in an American city is dedicated to the car. A lot of that land cannot generate economic value very efficiently. For example, a massive mall will have an even bigger parking lot. But if that area was a walkable neighborhood, it could support many more local businesses and generate more tax income and economic activity. - Destruction of neighborhoods. Thousands of neighborhoods destroyed and people displaced to build highways right through downtown. - Acceptance of bad air quality. Cars make air quality pretty bad in cities. Air would be fresher in cities without cars. - Acceptance of terrible noise pollution. Cars (or any motor vehicle) are very loud, especially at scale. Cities would feel much quieter without cars. And constant exposure to this noise makes people less happy. And look, I don’t believe cars are the root of evil. My point is that we are dependent on cars because we designed our cities around cars. Yes, of course our economy is stronger because we have an excellent interstate highway system. But that highway didn’t need to cut a city in half and bring noise and pollution right downtown. And yes, trucks and fright and deliveries make lives better. But we didn’t need to abandon local, walkable businesses to get that. If cities were designed to optimize people’s happiness, we should absolutely see far fewer cars in cities. Because it’s possible to design a city such that you don’t need to drive a car everywhere. And when that happens, people don’t gravitate towards the car nearly as often as they do today. Because driving a car in a city is really not that nice. In fact, it is usually very stressful and involves a lot of waiting. That is why alternatives work when they are well-supported. And that’s really the point here: people want there to be a reasonable choice besides>/em> cars in cities. There should be options! Cars are just the only viable option for way too many trips because cities are designed only for cars. Providing options is very difficult to accomplish when you dedicate almost half of a cities land and 95% of the public right of way to cars.

by rsj_hn 5y ago

Wowfunhappy 5y ago

> A good tip is that if you ever come up with some model of society that makes everyone look like they are doing something irrational, then odds are that your model is wrong, not that society is wrong. Well, but it could also be a case of "tragedy of the commons". Everyone is acting rationally on an individual level, but a collective change would be to everyone's benefit. I know people who drive big SUVs even though gas is more expensive not because they like big SUVs, but because they're worried if they don't drive a big SUV, they're more likely to die in a crash with someone who does. The result is, of course, even more SUVs.

rsj_hn 5y ago
Yes, there can be some tragedy of the commons issues, but a lot of the time, that's really an issue of a stable versus unstable equilibrium. You would be surprised by how many people insist on an unstable equilibrium and ask government to try to stabilize it, which often ends up being quite expensive. But it does happen. However most tragedy of the commons issues are not new and there are already established ways of dealing with them. In the specific case of SUVs, almost all SUVs sold are actually lifted sedans. They don't have much worse mileage or weigh more than the corresponding sedans. Nor are they better in crashes. It's more of a culture war item where some people really hate those who drive the SUVs -- soccer moms, etc. Here the issue is that a lower center of gravity (and a stiffer ride) creates better handling, but an SUV is more comfortable and is easier to get in and out of. And it usually features a soft suspension. So there are a lot of car enthusiasts that hate SUVs because it's a rejection of their values, and a lot of Europeans that prefer wagons to SUVs are offended by someone wanting to sit higher up. Now yes, there is a situation in which higher cars make it more valuable to sit higher up, but that difference of being 1 foot higher doesn't really destroy visibility, it's psychological. The most popular SUV -- RAV4 has a height of 5.6 feet -- whereas the most popular sedan of 2020 (Camry) has a height of 4.77 feet. That 1 foot difference is not going to destroy visibility and does not represent some out of control thing. The difference in weight is about 100 pounds (3500 for Rav4 and 3400 for Camry). RAV4 gets 30mpg combined -- same as the Camry. These are not huge differences to justify the rage many have at SUVs. Just give the SUV in front of you a bit more room and your visibility will be fine, nor does the RAV4 force other people to get a RAV4 due to collisions.
- msrenee 5y ago
  I think I and most people around here have a different definition of an SUV than you. I'd call a RAV4 a crossover. Kind of an SUV but kind of not. You say that most SUVs are lifted sedans, but I'd argue that SUVs, at least originally, and the ones I would consider a problem, are built on a light truck chassis. I'm pretty sure most people don't have half as much of a problem with RAV4s as they do with Sequoias. Add in the F150 and it's pretty sketchy driving a civic in some places I've lived.

noahtallen 5y ago

> Point being, there is a reason people don't walk everywhere, which is that there is a space/time trade off. While this is right at a surface level, I think it’s more accurate to say that people don’t walk everywhere because in most cases, they cannot. In every North American city, if you step just a bit out of the urban core, or even across the urban core, it will be very difficult to walk to where you need to go. This means that nearly every North American is dependent on a car by default. There is an ingrained car culture that makes change difficult. I would say that car dependency is a result of our city design, rather than the result of cars being good. It doesn’t have to be this way, it didn’t used to be this way, and it isn’t this way in many parts of the world. Just because cars are a very convenient mode of transportation doesn’t mean that the changes required to support have been positive. There are some very extreme negative externalities: - Extreme land use requirements. Not only do you need huge roads, but you need huge parking lots everywhere. Nearly half of all land in an American city is dedicated to the car. A lot of that land cannot generate economic value very efficiently. For example, a massive mall will have an even bigger parking lot. But if that area was a walkable neighborhood, it could support many more local businesses and generate more tax income and economic activity. - Destruction of neighborhoods. Thousands of neighborhoods destroyed and people displaced to build highways right through downtown. - Acceptance of bad air quality. Cars make air quality pretty bad in cities. Air would be fresher in cities without cars. - Acceptance of terrible noise pollution. Cars (or any motor vehicle) are very loud, especially at scale. Cities would feel much quieter without cars. And constant exposure to this noise makes people less happy. And look, I don’t believe cars are the root of evil. My point is that we are dependent on cars because we designed our cities around cars. Yes, of course our economy is stronger because we have an excellent interstate highway system. But that highway didn’t need to cut a city in half and bring noise and pollution right downtown. And yes, trucks and fright and deliveries make lives better. But we didn’t need to abandon local, walkable businesses to get that. If cities were designed to optimize people’s happiness, we should absolutely see far fewer cars in cities. Because it’s possible to design a city such that you don’t need to drive a car everywhere. And when that happens, people don’t gravitate towards the car nearly as often as they do today. Because driving a car in a city is really not that nice. In fact, it is usually very stressful and involves a lot of waiting. That is why alternatives work when they are well-supported. And that’s really the point here: people want there to be a reasonable choice besides>/em> cars in cities. There should be options! Cars are just the only viable option for way too many trips because cities are designed only for cars. Providing options is very difficult to accomplish when you dedicate almost half of a cities land and 95% of the public right of way to cars.