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> but ultimately most people /want/ to drive everywhere if they can afford to, otherwise cars wouldn't have taken off in the first place. I don’t buy it. Peopl

> but ultimately most people /want/ to drive everywhere if they can afford to, otherwise cars wouldn't have taken off in the first place. I don’t buy it. People want cars since our infrastructure is optimized for it. But I seriously doubt that most people want cars specifically as the optimized transit solution for urban environments.

a2tech 5y ago
I'm one of those people. I LOVE being able to go anywhere I want, when I want. I'm willing to pay for the privilege. Do you know what happens when you take away parking and make it difficult for me to bring myself (and lets be honest what really matters--my money) to a place? I stop going. If you make it difficult for me to get to where I want to go I read that as a rejection of ME, and I don't go places where I'm not wanted. My money and my car will go somewhere else. I'm not going to fight with people online about it, I'll just abandon those spaces.
- lovemenot 5y ago
  Please don't take it personally. YOU are still welcome. YOU are not a fast-moving, noisy, smelly, ugly, large, heavy metal box. Other people who also self-identity as ME matter too. THEY will still welcome YOU. absent the brum-brum which, in aggregate with other brum-brums, is a massive annoyance to THEM.
- ryukafalz 5y ago
  The businesses will still be better off though, because for everyone like you who avoids them due to the lack of parking, there will be multiple people who visit them more on foot or by bike. Your money won’t be missed.
  - jjav 5y ago
    > The businesses will still be better off though Depends on the downtown area. If there is enough population living within walking distance of the shops to sustain those shops then the businesses will be fine. And the area will be more pleasant for those who do live within that area, so that's nice. It does become exclusionary for those who live outside the area as parent poster said but perhaps that's ok, as long as the population density there is high enough to keep it going. But many downtown shop areas don't have enough population within walking distance to keep the businesses viable. Those areas depend on people from farther out driving in to spend their money. For those, making parking difficult (too far, too expensive) can quickly go into a downward spiral of shops closing, area decaying, becoming less attractive to visit, leading to even more shops closing, until the old downtown core is a ghost town. So population density is key. If density isn't there one can't just slap a prohibition on cars/parking and expect it to work well.
pandaman 5y ago
If people had been buying cars out of necessity then why would be there so many expensive cars on the roads? My commute's traffic is more than 50% SUVs and trucks, which cost way more than small hatchbacks and sedans.
- occz 5y ago
  Mostly marketing, but also the bigger vehicle safety dilemma: if you drive a bigger vehicle and crash with a smaller vehicle, you will be fine but the smaller vehicle will not. Hence, to remain safe in a world where some drivers get SUVs/trucks, you more or less are forced to get one yourself. An easy solution would be to tax vehicles in relation to how much road damage they cause. If drivers had to pay the weight of their vehicle to the fourth power, then they would all think twice before adding any more unnecessary (and lethal) kilos to their vehicles.
  - pandaman 5y ago
    One could buy a 30K minivan for that, not a 100K truck. And that marketing seems to be very powerful if it can easily make people pay 10s of thousand dollars more for the things they don't want, I'd like to employ this marketing for my business if it had been real.
    - teucris 5y ago
      Are you critiquing the luxury goods market or am I missing something?
      - pandaman 5y ago
        Probably missing. I respond to the post that explains that people drive expensive cars they don't want because they are big and well marketed with an example of cheap big cars and a request for a referral to a marketer able to oversell tens of thousand dollars of useless goods.
- neutronicus 5y ago

a2tech 5y ago

I'm one of those people. I LOVE being able to go anywhere I want, when I want. I'm willing to pay for the privilege. Do you know what happens when you take away parking and make it difficult for me to bring myself (and lets be honest what really matters--my money) to a place? I stop going. If you make it difficult for me to get to where I want to go I read that as a rejection of ME, and I don't go places where I'm not wanted. My money and my car will go somewhere else. I'm not going to fight with people online about it, I'll just abandon those spaces.

lovemenot 5y ago
Please don't take it personally. YOU are still welcome. YOU are not a fast-moving, noisy, smelly, ugly, large, heavy metal box. Other people who also self-identity as ME matter too. THEY will still welcome YOU. absent the brum-brum which, in aggregate with other brum-brums, is a massive annoyance to THEM.
ryukafalz 5y ago
The businesses will still be better off though, because for everyone like you who avoids them due to the lack of parking, there will be multiple people who visit them more on foot or by bike. Your money won’t be missed.
- jjav 5y ago
  > The businesses will still be better off though Depends on the downtown area. If there is enough population living within walking distance of the shops to sustain those shops then the businesses will be fine. And the area will be more pleasant for those who do live within that area, so that's nice. It does become exclusionary for those who live outside the area as parent poster said but perhaps that's ok, as long as the population density there is high enough to keep it going. But many downtown shop areas don't have enough population within walking distance to keep the businesses viable. Those areas depend on people from farther out driving in to spend their money. For those, making parking difficult (too far, too expensive) can quickly go into a downward spiral of shops closing, area decaying, becoming less attractive to visit, leading to even more shops closing, until the old downtown core is a ghost town. So population density is key. If density isn't there one can't just slap a prohibition on cars/parking and expect it to work well.

pandaman 5y ago

If people had been buying cars out of necessity then why would be there so many expensive cars on the roads? My commute's traffic is more than 50% SUVs and trucks, which cost way more than small hatchbacks and sedans.

occz 5y ago
Mostly marketing, but also the bigger vehicle safety dilemma: if you drive a bigger vehicle and crash with a smaller vehicle, you will be fine but the smaller vehicle will not. Hence, to remain safe in a world where some drivers get SUVs/trucks, you more or less are forced to get one yourself. An easy solution would be to tax vehicles in relation to how much road damage they cause. If drivers had to pay the weight of their vehicle to the fourth power, then they would all think twice before adding any more unnecessary (and lethal) kilos to their vehicles.
- pandaman 5y ago
  One could buy a 30K minivan for that, not a 100K truck. And that marketing seems to be very powerful if it can easily make people pay 10s of thousand dollars more for the things they don't want, I'd like to employ this marketing for my business if it had been real.
  - teucris 5y ago
    Are you critiquing the luxury goods market or am I missing something?
    - pandaman 5y ago
      Probably missing. I respond to the post that explains that people drive expensive cars they don't want because they are big and well marketed with an example of cheap big cars and a request for a referral to a marketer able to oversell tens of thousand dollars of useless goods.
neutronicus 5y ago