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Japan has a car to household ratio of 1.06, compared to America's 1.88 average per household. South Korea has even fewer. Let's set the first goal at one car p
by socialismisok 4y ago
Japan has a car to household ratio of 1.06, compared to America's 1.88 average per household.
South Korea has even fewer. Let's set the first goal at one car per household, and supplement everything beyond that with transit and electric bikes.
- sbaiddn 4y agoOne car per family is doable, even in the US. We did it for a while and then got ourselves a Golf. Even after we moved to the suburbs, and the Golf was in the shop (deer) for a month (supply chain), it wasnt so bad. The secret? My other car is a 7 seater SUV with a 3.3L V6 that can tow 5000 lb. Its big enough that it can do anything I might need it to do. Getting the golf, ironically, lowered our fuel consumption because the golf can do 70% of what we'd use the SUV for. But, because of that remaining 30%, I'm keeping the SUV. So its not obvious that simply lowering average numbers of cars per household improves anything. Btw, replacing my Golf with an F150 hybrid would probably lower my fuel usage.
- missedthecue 4y agoUS is clearly the outlier in automobile dependency, no argument there.
- TrapLord_Rhodo 4y agoWhat does car per household have to do with anything? I can have 12 cars and never drive, one car and be on the road 24/7.
- socialismisok 4y agoA drop in the average to one car per household implies a significant reduction in the number of cars on the road. Right now, it's not uncommon to have two family members commute by car every day. Yes, there will always be outliers, but I care about the average case.
- TrapLord_Rhodo 4y agoif you don't care about outliers, then don't quote data that does. Outliers are everything, and without them being stripped the data is meaningless. I would venture to say there is a higher correlation between wealth to cars, than driving to cars. I would futher venture that if you have 4+ cars, you do less driving than the average person who only has one car per household. I have 17 Tesla's that i rent out on Eturo. I work remotely in downtown chicago and i literally never drive.
- socialismisok 4y agoYou are arguing with a strawman. I don't care about any individual. Your business might own 17 cars, fine. But like, the world in which the average cars per household is 1.0 is one where there are a lot fewer cars on the road. I'm not sure why that's controversial to you?
- afarrell 4y agoWhat are the means by which a team of 150 can make progress over two years towards that goal? Such a team can work on improving EC technology. It cannot meaningfully make progress on reconfiguring a city like Houston or Los Angeles or San Francisco.
- adrianN 4y agoWere I live there is a dire need for planners in city offices that do the paper work for opening bike lanes and improving public transport. I think there are only a dozen or two for the whole city. 150 people doing that absolutely would make a difference.
- afarrell 4y agoI stand corrected. It would be good to make things like this more widely known.
- socialismisok 4y agoLook at Google's Environmental Insight Explorer. I'm sure that's less than 150 people and it's doing incredible work to help cities with legislation, transportation, and energy. https://insights.sustainability.google/ https://insights.sustainability.google/
- SyzygistSix 4y agoElectric bikes are more akin to scooters and mopeds. A quick look at Asian cities and comparing them to Copenhagen and Amsterdam shows the difference between the two. Riding old-fashioned bicycles would do most Americans some much needed good.
- socialismisok 4y agoElectric bikes still require pedaling and have been demonstrated to be aerobic exercise. If Americans rode e bikes everywhere, we'd have a huge improvement in health.