4 ms·

We’re not going to replace cars with trains in the timescales necessary to deal with climate change, even if we could convince everyone to upend their lifestyle

We’re not going to replace cars with trains in the timescales necessary to deal with climate change, even if we could convince everyone to upend their lifestyle. It just isn’t going to happen.

hot_gril 4y ago
Yeah, would basically require demolishing most cities and rebuilding them around the train lines. Moving non-physical jobs to home has more potential.
- occz 4y ago
  Cities were demolished to accommodate cars in the past, I see no reason why such a retrofit would be impossible in the other direction. There is some potential in reduction by moving jobs to WFH when possible, but this is not mutually exclusive with migrating to energy efficient means of transportation and urban development. Hence, I don't think it's relevant in the discussion.
  - hot_gril 4y ago
    In what way were they demolished? Cars allow for urban sprawl. People now have homes in places where they rely on cars to get to work. I also have a theory that widespread WFH makes dense cities obsolete. Dense cities seem to originate from big money appearing somewhere and everyone building around it, eventually reaching the typical situation where the highest-paid can afford to live there and everyone else commutes in and out. If the housing, roads, or public transit are expanded, more people come and saturate them again, because the commute is worth the pay. (If it's just roads, such commutes are super polluting.) But when the execs and higher-paid workers don't need to be there in person, it dominoes. There's no extra money to be made providing physical goods/services in that area, and no incentive for such a forced commute or crammed living quarters. Physical laborers end up working locally, and more isolated, less dense, lower-income but lower-cost-of-living cities form. I used to work in SF and observe these things closely, and now I'm watching what happens as many of the techies leave.
    - occz 4y ago
      >In what way were they demolished? Cars allow for urban sprawl. People now have homes in places where they rely on cars to get to work. Highway construction demolished a lot of neighbourhoods in cities. In the U.S, the demolished neighborhoods were also disproportionately low-income and majority non-white neighborhoods. >I also have a theory that widespread WFH makes dense cities obsolete. Dense cities seem to originate from big money appearing somewhere and everyone building around it, eventually reaching the typical situation where the highest-paid can afford to live there and everyone else commutes in and out. If the housing, roads, or public transit are expanded, more people come and saturate them again, because the commute is worth the pay. (If it's just roads, such commutes are super polluting.) But when the execs and higher-paid workers don't need to be there in person, it dominoes. There's no extra money to be made providing physical goods/services in that area, and no incentive for such a forced commute or crammed living quarters. Physical laborers end up working locally, and more isolated, less dense, lower-income but lower-cost-of-living cities form. This is only really true if work is the only reason someone would live in a dense city, and it's not. Cities are a thing because they allow for economies of scale in all things, be that culture, dating, transportation or otherwise. This efficiency is somewhat obscured by a plethora of reasons right now - car-oriented infrastructure subsidised by people not utilizing that infrastructure is one of the higher ones on the list.
      - hot_gril 4y ago
        > Highway construction demolished a lot of neighbourhoods in cities. In the U.S, the demolished neighborhoods were also disproportionately low-income and majority non-white neighborhoods. The space a highway or other road takes up is nowhere close to the space it allows to inhabited, though. LA County is the perfect example of an area that has grown via roads to become non-viable for trains. It's just too spread out. Without the roads, tons of households would be cut off from jobs they commute to, again the low-income ones. I'm not justifying the original construction of the highways, just saying what would happen if we went back. > This is only really true if work is the only reason someone would live in a dense city, and it's not. Cities are a thing because they allow for economies of scale in all things, be that culture, dating, transportation or otherwise. Regular cities make sense for that. You get two of each kind of business in proximity, and most people are good with that. Dense cities go beyond that point and get to where less scalable resources become strained, like housing. It's a clear sign when people are commuting from outside that something is wrong. Yes, some people still prefer the excitement, but usually just the young and single. SF pre and post tech boom, and during/after 2020, gives you an idea of how many people are just there for the work.
  - throwaway894345 4y ago
    At a minimum, because there is very little political appetite for it (apart from left-wing urban professionals) in large part because it’s an insanely inefficient way to meet climate goals (compared with building out clean energy sources and electrifying fossil fuel applications like cars), but also because it’s insanely invasive (it requires pushing everyone into a lifestyle they don’t want).
occz 4y ago
Ok. On the other hand, a complete migration to EVs won't solve the climate crisis either, as they are not energy efficient enough. Combine this with the fact that car-oriented developments are energy-inefficient in other ways - single family homes are way worse with regards to energy efficiency, lack of walkability makes car travel mandatory, larger infrastructure requirements are again worse woth regards to energy efficiency, and so on. Does this mean we should throw our hands up and not make an EVs? No, that would be a bad strategy, a complete non-option. We must halt the climate crisis, this is quite frankly mandatory. So, how do we tackle this issue? If we want to deal with the problem in a timely manner, we have to work within the framework we already have today. This means some degree of replacing ICEs with EVs. Crucially though, we need to realize that the framework itself is bad, and requires replacement in the future. This means halting investments in non-sustainable built environments, building energy-efficient transportation infrastructure to connect existing places where it makes sense, and only building new places with appropriate transportation infrastructure. Defeatism is not on the roadmap.
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  No one is arguing that EVs will solve climate change. They are necessary but not sufficient, and their issue isn’t that they aren’t efficient enough, it’s that (1) our grid isn’t yet fully clean and (2) cars don’t account for a sufficiently large share of emissions (so 100% of clean power for cars doesn’t address emissions for other applications). > single family homes are way worse with regards to energy efficiency, We’re definitely not going to get everyone into small urban apartments in the next 50 years. We couldn’t build the necessary apartments fast enough, and the costs would be enormous for a relatively small reduction in emissions. The better value for money is building out our clean energy capacity as quickly as possible and disincentivizing waste via carbon pricing. > Defeatism is not on the roadmap. Cool, then let’s just terraform Mars and call it a day. Of course, we have to be realistic which means no terraforming Mars or building hundreds of millions of apartment units and equivalent rail infrastructure.
alkonaut 4y ago
Most people still don’t own cars. Far from it. The key must be to ensure that billions of people don’t need to pass through the 1950-2000 infrastructure dead-end that e.g the US took, by betting on the car as the transportation mode of choice.
- jotm 4y ago
  Just skip the bs restrictions on people other than you and mass murder them. Road to hell is paved with good intentions or something.
  - alkonaut 4y ago
    Come again?
    - jotm 4y ago
      People arguing for restricting others' freedoms while enjoying them themselves is what I see. Good old genocide is the ultimate conclusion to that and undeniably the most effective option.
      - alkonaut 4y ago
        You mean I’m arguing we should work to have fewer cars in e.g Asia? And that’s whose restricted freedom? Those who have good enough infrastructure to not need cars? I don’t get it. The idea is not not force people to need cars by building poor infrastructure and poorly planned cities. I’d love to not need to own a car (and I’m not American). Not sure why you keep talking about genocide and to be honest it’s not quite coherent.
        jotm 4y ago
        And it's a great idea, good thought. I used bicycles in cities where it was possible. But that, and public transportation, only goes so far. A personal car gives incredible freedom, especially to the poor. Suddenly they can live affordably far from work, choose better work places, do work on the side, transport luggage on the cheap. Inevitably, the only way to stop people from getting cars is to make the licensing and their cost prohibitively expensive. So they will take overcrowded trains that may not be on time, and/or live in closets or be lucky not to get into a serious accident on a bike/moped in a city not made for them. Solving battery energy density and EVs are a good compromise. But yes, you're right, cities should not be planned around cars. Imo, there should be more of them actually, but alas it seems that's a lost art and everyone's gathering in whatever big cities were made in the past couple of centuries or earlier. Genocide is a dumb example stemming from my belief that death is better than life in squalor heh. Obviously most people don't think that.

We’re not going to replace cars with trains in the timescales necessary to deal with climate change, even if we could convince everyone to upend their lifestyle. It just isn’t going to happen.

hot_gril 4y ago

Yeah, would basically require demolishing most cities and rebuilding them around the train lines. Moving non-physical jobs to home has more potential.

occz 4y ago
Cities were demolished to accommodate cars in the past, I see no reason why such a retrofit would be impossible in the other direction. There is some potential in reduction by moving jobs to WFH when possible, but this is not mutually exclusive with migrating to energy efficient means of transportation and urban development. Hence, I don't think it's relevant in the discussion.
- hot_gril 4y ago
  In what way were they demolished? Cars allow for urban sprawl. People now have homes in places where they rely on cars to get to work. I also have a theory that widespread WFH makes dense cities obsolete. Dense cities seem to originate from big money appearing somewhere and everyone building around it, eventually reaching the typical situation where the highest-paid can afford to live there and everyone else commutes in and out. If the housing, roads, or public transit are expanded, more people come and saturate them again, because the commute is worth the pay. (If it's just roads, such commutes are super polluting.) But when the execs and higher-paid workers don't need to be there in person, it dominoes. There's no extra money to be made providing physical goods/services in that area, and no incentive for such a forced commute or crammed living quarters. Physical laborers end up working locally, and more isolated, less dense, lower-income but lower-cost-of-living cities form. I used to work in SF and observe these things closely, and now I'm watching what happens as many of the techies leave.
  - occz 4y ago
    >In what way were they demolished? Cars allow for urban sprawl. People now have homes in places where they rely on cars to get to work. Highway construction demolished a lot of neighbourhoods in cities. In the U.S, the demolished neighborhoods were also disproportionately low-income and majority non-white neighborhoods. >I also have a theory that widespread WFH makes dense cities obsolete. Dense cities seem to originate from big money appearing somewhere and everyone building around it, eventually reaching the typical situation where the highest-paid can afford to live there and everyone else commutes in and out. If the housing, roads, or public transit are expanded, more people come and saturate them again, because the commute is worth the pay. (If it's just roads, such commutes are super polluting.) But when the execs and higher-paid workers don't need to be there in person, it dominoes. There's no extra money to be made providing physical goods/services in that area, and no incentive for such a forced commute or crammed living quarters. Physical laborers end up working locally, and more isolated, less dense, lower-income but lower-cost-of-living cities form. This is only really true if work is the only reason someone would live in a dense city, and it's not. Cities are a thing because they allow for economies of scale in all things, be that culture, dating, transportation or otherwise. This efficiency is somewhat obscured by a plethora of reasons right now - car-oriented infrastructure subsidised by people not utilizing that infrastructure is one of the higher ones on the list.
    - hot_gril 4y ago
      > Highway construction demolished a lot of neighbourhoods in cities. In the U.S, the demolished neighborhoods were also disproportionately low-income and majority non-white neighborhoods. The space a highway or other road takes up is nowhere close to the space it allows to inhabited, though. LA County is the perfect example of an area that has grown via roads to become non-viable for trains. It's just too spread out. Without the roads, tons of households would be cut off from jobs they commute to, again the low-income ones. I'm not justifying the original construction of the highways, just saying what would happen if we went back. > This is only really true if work is the only reason someone would live in a dense city, and it's not. Cities are a thing because they allow for economies of scale in all things, be that culture, dating, transportation or otherwise. Regular cities make sense for that. You get two of each kind of business in proximity, and most people are good with that. Dense cities go beyond that point and get to where less scalable resources become strained, like housing. It's a clear sign when people are commuting from outside that something is wrong. Yes, some people still prefer the excitement, but usually just the young and single. SF pre and post tech boom, and during/after 2020, gives you an idea of how many people are just there for the work.
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  At a minimum, because there is very little political appetite for it (apart from left-wing urban professionals) in large part because it’s an insanely inefficient way to meet climate goals (compared with building out clean energy sources and electrifying fossil fuel applications like cars), but also because it’s insanely invasive (it requires pushing everyone into a lifestyle they don’t want).

occz 4y ago

Ok. On the other hand, a complete migration to EVs won't solve the climate crisis either, as they are not energy efficient enough. Combine this with the fact that car-oriented developments are energy-inefficient in other ways - single family homes are way worse with regards to energy efficiency, lack of walkability makes car travel mandatory, larger infrastructure requirements are again worse woth regards to energy efficiency, and so on. Does this mean we should throw our hands up and not make an EVs? No, that would be a bad strategy, a complete non-option. We must halt the climate crisis, this is quite frankly mandatory. So, how do we tackle this issue? If we want to deal with the problem in a timely manner, we have to work within the framework we already have today. This means some degree of replacing ICEs with EVs. Crucially though, we need to realize that the framework itself is bad, and requires replacement in the future. This means halting investments in non-sustainable built environments, building energy-efficient transportation infrastructure to connect existing places where it makes sense, and only building new places with appropriate transportation infrastructure. Defeatism is not on the roadmap.

throwaway894345 4y ago
No one is arguing that EVs will solve climate change. They are necessary but not sufficient, and their issue isn’t that they aren’t efficient enough, it’s that (1) our grid isn’t yet fully clean and (2) cars don’t account for a sufficiently large share of emissions (so 100% of clean power for cars doesn’t address emissions for other applications). > single family homes are way worse with regards to energy efficiency, We’re definitely not going to get everyone into small urban apartments in the next 50 years. We couldn’t build the necessary apartments fast enough, and the costs would be enormous for a relatively small reduction in emissions. The better value for money is building out our clean energy capacity as quickly as possible and disincentivizing waste via carbon pricing. > Defeatism is not on the roadmap. Cool, then let’s just terraform Mars and call it a day. Of course, we have to be realistic which means no terraforming Mars or building hundreds of millions of apartment units and equivalent rail infrastructure.

alkonaut 4y ago

Most people still don’t own cars. Far from it. The key must be to ensure that billions of people don’t need to pass through the 1950-2000 infrastructure dead-end that e.g the US took, by betting on the car as the transportation mode of choice.

jotm 4y ago
Just skip the bs restrictions on people other than you and mass murder them. Road to hell is paved with good intentions or something.
- alkonaut 4y ago
  Come again?
  - jotm 4y ago
    People arguing for restricting others' freedoms while enjoying them themselves is what I see. Good old genocide is the ultimate conclusion to that and undeniably the most effective option.
    - alkonaut 4y ago
      You mean I’m arguing we should work to have fewer cars in e.g Asia? And that’s whose restricted freedom? Those who have good enough infrastructure to not need cars? I don’t get it. The idea is not not force people to need cars by building poor infrastructure and poorly planned cities. I’d love to not need to own a car (and I’m not American). Not sure why you keep talking about genocide and to be honest it’s not quite coherent.
      - jotm 4y ago
        And it's a great idea, good thought. I used bicycles in cities where it was possible. But that, and public transportation, only goes so far. A personal car gives incredible freedom, especially to the poor. Suddenly they can live affordably far from work, choose better work places, do work on the side, transport luggage on the cheap. Inevitably, the only way to stop people from getting cars is to make the licensing and their cost prohibitively expensive. So they will take overcrowded trains that may not be on time, and/or live in closets or be lucky not to get into a serious accident on a bike/moped in a city not made for them. Solving battery energy density and EVs are a good compromise. But yes, you're right, cities should not be planned around cars. Imo, there should be more of them actually, but alas it seems that's a lost art and everyone's gathering in whatever big cities were made in the past couple of centuries or earlier. Genocide is a dumb example stemming from my belief that death is better than life in squalor heh. Obviously most people don't think that.