26 ms·

1 short cut to cutting demand is to copy everyone else around the world. Let cities get rid of single family zoning. Let go of pride and commute by bicycle.

• irrational 4y ago
  How long would that take to happen? It’s not like all of the current building and infrastructure can be torn down and rebuilt in the European model overnight. Could it even happen within one person’s lifetime?
  • Anderkent 4y ago
    Building is fast if you allow people to do it. You could have a new apartment building in around a year, and that's without really pushing it. Zoning and permits are what's holding construction back
    • ryathal 4y ago
      Lack of construction workers is also holding things back, this could be a lit of a licensing issue, but there aren't enough workers to do all the projects that are funded now.
  • favflam 4y ago
    No pain, no gain. We just suck it up for a few years. Our future generations will thank us. You get immediate savings by stopping road expansion and cutting fuel demand (close lanes on big roads, replace with bicycle lanes). You get 3-10 years of pain from bicycle/walk-commuting in a city designed for cars. To compensate, let people build supermarkets and stores in single family zoned areas. Subsidize rent-a-bike companies with funds from gas taxes and frozen road construction projects. This is basically the only sure-fire way to let poor people generate free cash flow to survive the recession without having to helicopter them money. This has worked for developing countries like China. Also, this is a way to keep cities financially solvent by letting the tax revenue to land area ratio increase naturally as people adjust to human-powered commuting.
    • irrational 4y ago
      I still don't understand how that would fix anything. The suburbs of the city I live nearby extend out for 10 miles from the city center. And between here and the city center there is a super steep road that runs for about 4 miles. Trying to bike from the city center up to the suburbs at the end of the work day would be extremely difficult except for an elite athlete.
  • hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
    The fact that it will take time is not a counter-argument.
  • sgjohnson 4y ago
    It's not like the European model even works. Public transport is only as good as it is convenient, and it's virtually impossible to make it convenient for most people outside of extra-super-ultra urban areas (think New York City and London). If you can hop on a bus within a 5 minute walk of where you live, and then hop off withing a 5 minute walk of where you work, life is beautiful and you can probably ditch your car (at least for daily commute). For most, this is not the case. And I don't want to live in a ultra-urban area.
    • fenk85 4y ago
    • DoughnutHole 4y ago
      Pure nonsense - you don't have to live in Megacity One to have that level of functioning public transport. Most people in Europe live in cities with populations under a million and guess what - even the smaller regional cities in Germany, France, the Netherlands etc have fully functional public transport systems. The only thing really holding back public transport is lack of imagination and ambition. Just because things don't work now doesn't mean they can't if you actually try.
    • noahtallen 4y ago
      You don’t have to live in an ultra-urban area, but 80% of Americans live in an urban area already. [0] When we have discussions like this, the “normal case” is actually that people live in cities, so that’s obviously what the conversations gravitate around. I grew up in a small town (4k pop), and there’s no reason bikes shouldn’t be extremely effective in town. It’s tiny! There’s no true need to drive a large, inefficient vehicle .5mi to the rite aid or McDonald’s. Nearly everyone in this tiny town is within quick walking distance of what used to be a passenger train station. It could become a passenger train station again with the right investment. People living in truly rural areas is an edge case where cars obviously make sense. Even then, the majority of car trips are local. 60% of trips are fewer than 6mi. 0: https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/geography/guidance/geo-areas/urban-rural/ua-facts.html https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/geography/guidance/g... 1: https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1042-august-13-2018-2017-nearly-60-all-vehicle-trips-were-less-six-miles https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1042-augu...
• donw 4y ago
  > Let go of pride and commute by bicycle. It has nothing to do with pride. Cars are comfortable and convenient. You get a nice seat, air the temperature you want it, and can carry actual cargo. It's easy to run a complete loop of errands after your workday, because you can store stuff in your car. I went from around ten years of riding the trains in Tokyo to driving a car around a Japanese suburb. Japanese public transportation is excellent, easily best on Planet Earth, and the car wins hands-down.
  • favflam 4y ago
    The pride remark is anecdotal on my part, but based on SUV sales I would argue that my point is close to true in the US. Cars are a luxury. If you are willing to pay a tax based on engine displacement , give priority on roads to pedestrians and cyclists, and still prefer car-travel, then it is a win-win. If you want city governments to prioritize car-travel over everyone else, then it is a win-lose. The only winner will be car-owners who can spare the cash flow. The economics on transporting 1s of kgs of food by 1000s of kgs of metal no longer makes sense in the United States for the majority of people as they have poor cash flow and poor balance sheets. I think economically speaking delivery trucks and local supermarkets should take most of the burden.
    • notch656a 4y ago
      >I think economically speaking delivery trucks and local supermarkets should take most of the burden. Currently car owners disproportionately pay for roads that those without cars enjoy. They pay for roads (in their own fuel tax, purchase tax on automobile, and often in registration fees) that allow heavy delivery trucks to bring food and medicine and various goods to local shops and addresses where the car-less can access them. This all despite a car wears remarkably less on a road than the semis that truck in these goods so the car-less (and others) can access them locally. If anything, pedestrians and bike riders underpay for a road system they take advantage of. In fact one can ride a bicycle and be a near complete free-rider to the road system, if your income is low enough, despite still availing yourself of benefits such as trucked in food/medicine/goods.
  • blitzar 4y ago
• isitmadeofglass 4y ago
  What are you expecting this to do exactly? Inflation in norther Europe is rampant too, and the housing market is just as bad. the fact that many people bike to work doesn’t change that.
  • pas 4y ago
    biking costs are a lot less susceptible to inflation. similarly if other variable costs of living go up but these are shared by more people (due to density) then ceteris paribus those pesky northerners have it a bit better in this hypothetical scenario.
    • isitmadeofglass 4y ago
      Its not a hypothetical scenario. Its literally reality as we speak. And its not the case as your hypothesis would have it that countries in northern Europe are in any non insignificant way are less affected than other parts of the world. The world economic situation is not going to be resolved by people drinking fewer expensive coffees, eating fewer avocado toasts or biking more to work, or other bike shed related activities. The effects are negligible in the overall picture.
      • pas 4y ago
        how is it negligible that you can't go to work without a car? if said car breaks down you have to pay (and spend time) to repair it. many people live paycheck to paycheck, no savings. payday loans and credit card loans are a problem in the US and it's not exactly a coincidence. of course people in said European cities who can't afford a car also usually don't frequent Starbucks and don't buy avocado (unless maybe if it's on sale), that doesn't mean transportation as a factor is negligible. > The world economic situation ... is a completely structural problem. the world needs to spend less of its economic surplus on unsustainable stuff, and this includes everything with externalities (from things like watering the desert in California on an industrial scale to housing/heating/cooling/moving people and freight around using costly ways) and allocating more to building infrastructure for energy generation (and transmission and storage), healthcare and education. of course strictly speak we don't need to. feudalism was fine, most people got used to it.
• blfr 4y ago
  Commuting by bike isn't going to happen. It's not practical for most business and personal purposes. Electric scooters have a better shot than bikes. (Still not going to happen.) The only alternative to cars in cities is working public transit. And working means available, frequent, safe, and clean. You can't have homeless people sleeping on buses, you can't turn it off at 1 am. Regular people need to be able to rely on it.
  • sofixa 4y ago
    Bikes and electric scooters can very well supplement public transit, at least for the "last mile". Cities like Paris and Amsterdam have very good public transit, but biking is still popular, even in wind, rain and cold. People bike in freaking Oulu, Finland, even with the snow and cold. It's a perfectly viable supplement to good public transit.
    • codebolt 4y ago
      As a northern European, I can confirm. The nearest train station is a 10 minute bike ride from my house. From there the rest of my commute is a breeze. If I was to drive I'd be stuck in traffic much longer. And it's nice to get some fresh air to start the day. Only problem is the few months of snow.
      • rayiner 4y ago
        I believe you that your commute is fine but I think you don’t understand how much Americans love convenience. How do I work a McDonalds drive through into that trip? Can yon get bikes with cup holders for a 32 ounce beverage? Of course it’s not just Americans. I’ve got southern German friends who love the American car centric lifestyle.
    • jimbob45 4y ago
      Sure, that works very well for European cities where moderate temperatures are the norm. For the heat of Texas, Arizona, Florida, and New Mexico? For the freezing temperatures in Minnesota, Alaska, and North Dakota? You would quickly die. Furthermore, our cities are simply bigger and more spread out. You’ll counter by saying we need denser, more walkable cities even though we obviously can’t just tear down our cities and start from scratch.
• EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
  I used to drive past a Dunkin Donut every day on my way to work and back. Every single time there was a police vehicle idling in their parking lot.
• kory 4y ago
  Please stop the urbanism spam. On average, Americans like suburbs. They like driving. They like space, a yard, a DIY workshop, and sunlight. They don't like cities. "haha go live in a city and bike to work" is not a fair response to high gas prices and inflation. It's not how people want to live. We've got a better chance of the USA banning oil exports to lower crude prices, or enacting substantial EV subsidies to get people off gas before we can convince the suburbanite with a 5bd house + quarter acre lot in a good school district that they should move to an urban 2 bedroom apartment instead. Even if we can, I guarantee you that the apartment won't be considered an upgrade.
  • MagnumOpus 4y ago
    Don't "convince the suburbanite", just get petrol taxes to the same point as in Europe, so that the $10/gl price sends a signal to the soccer mums in their Canyonero when they fill up at the pump after ferrying their kids around - and on the margin it will have an effect. (And it is good for the climate too.)
    • dragonwriter 4y ago
      > Don't "convince the suburbanite", just get petrol taxes to the same point as in Europe, so that the $10/gl price sends a signal to the soccer mums ...to vote you out a replace you with someone who will undo the tax hike. The US is a very imperfect democracy, at best, but there are some red lines that, if you don't convince people first, will toast you immediately politically, and rapid tax increases related to automobiles or their operation are high on the list.
      • rayiner 4y ago
        I think the US is actually a very responsive democracy—liberals just don’t like the revealed preferences of the polity. My dad is a blue dog democrat. Has voted democrat ever since becoming naturalized. Wouldn’t even vote for Larry Hogan. Yet he’s apoplectic about inflation and gas prices, and hates the idea of raising taxes on people making $100-200k/year like himself. At the end of the day he cares more about those things than anything else Democrats care about. Liberals keep pinning their electoral prospects on people like my dad. Before it was Bangladeshi immigrants it was Irish and Italian immigrants. But these folks came to America for the American dream—two cars, a house with a pool, drive through McDonalds. As a result, liberals take it in the chin every time there is the slightest threat to the low tax consumerist suburban lifestyle. The last time it happened, in the 1970s, we got two decades of Reaganism.
• ParksNet 4y ago
  The US is suffering from a lack of cheap EVs. The cheapest EV, Nissan Leaf, has a 5-month waiting list and is still $20,000 - and only after $7.5k in tax subsidies which expire this year. Meanwhile, China has a lot of options starting at $5000. We're currently seeing a Western industrial failure generally, to encourage cheap mass-market EVs. Some of our safety regulations (especially those which force automakers to add heavy or draggy components) should also be overhauled.
  • sharno 4y ago
    The Dark Side of Electric Cars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_T5DgsO0jc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_T5DgsO0jc
  • favflam 4y ago
    Good points, but you still have the fundamental physics problem of hauling too much mass for too much distance for too little gain (1s kgs of groceries, etc). The US needs to get as many people off the road as possible. Get them on to bicycles (e-bikes), walking, riding buses and trains. I am looking at America's balance sheet and the only thing cars do is blow a whole in it. Cars cost too much relative to cash flow generated for families. Cars take up too much space in cities, killing cash flow generated from sales taxes and property taxes. The Return on Assets from a car is just too low, I believe the rate falls below the US gov/state govs cost of capital (hand wavy-speaking).
• scotuswroteus 4y ago
  And half the middle classes' nest eggs go poof, while the politicians who voted for it (many of whom don't hold down their own jobs) need to explain that it's actually for everyone's good. It wouldn't be a short cut. The long cut would be to change American culture to be able to make big changes like that for the good of the country. If something like this was proposed, the House that flips the fastest would be the House of Representatives, followed by the White House.
• AlexCoventry 4y ago
  > Let go of pride and commute by bicycle. Could you please elaborate on how pride gets in the way of commuting by bicycle? This is alien to me.