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That doesn't make it impractical. It makes it appropriate to certain use cases. A ford ranger is completely impractical in an italian inner city historic area
by Schroedingersat 4y ago
That doesn't make it impractical. It makes it appropriate to certain use cases.
A ford ranger is completely impractical in an italian inner city historic area where it doesn't fit in any of the streets. A nissan leaf is equally impractical deep in the canadian north where it can't make it to the next charging station during winter, let alone your destination. Trains are impractical when there are only five people within 20km of any proposed station site.
Large cars are wildly impractical in dense cities in temperate or warmer environments (where over half the world's population lives). Even if you try to forcefully change the city to make them viable at massive expense to car owners and non-drivers alike it just results in the downsides being diffuse. In a context where you're trying to get a large number of people in the same place, arranging things so you have to travel 5x as far at 35km/h (traffic rarely moves faster than this on average during peak times) so you can bring a 2t hunk of metal and plastic with you that not only gets you to your destination slower than a brisk walk would if you hadn't - it also makes everyone sick via pollution (even electric cars cause massive air pollution issues due to particles -- a tesla actually causes more pm2.5 emissions than a euro6 hatchback) and diabetes; makes large tracts of the city uninhabitable due to proximity to loud, dangerous machines, wastes about half of the available space in parking, setbacks, roads, and so on; and reduces the maximum density due to congestion.
This doesn't make a bike or a car impractical. It makes the bike an absolute no brainer for 70% of the trips of half the world's population (given sane infrastructure) and an option to add to a healthy mix for 95% of the rest. Trains are just as important, and cars should be optional everywhere (even if living without owning one is impractical for 20% of the population)