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Seems like the doubters were quite right - our ability to go anywhere is now dependent on forking out $25-50K for a car, hundreds of dollars in insurance paymen

Seems like the doubters were quite right - our ability to go anywhere is now dependent on forking out $25-50K for a car, hundreds of dollars in insurance payments, hundreds of dollars in gas payments, hundreds of dollars in parking, tickets/fines, tolls, registration, licensing. Not to mention all the taxes paid for the road, interstates, etc. And the fact you now have a 1% lifetime risk of dying in a car accident in the US. Getting into a car is among the riskiest things you do on a daily basis. Then, the way interstates tore apart communities and parking continues to ruin downtowns. That's before we get to the impact on the planet. At the time they had a wonderful network of intercity trains across the country (430,000mi by 1910), street cars and metros. A lot of which was torn up thanks to the car lobby.

CalRobert 3y ago
Paywall for life.
hifromLA 3y ago
Not to mention how car dependence makes it hard to densify our cities enough to build our way out of the housing crisis we have.
- hotstickyballs 3y ago
  The housing crisis is exactly how densification starts. It will happen when market forces are allowed to work despite the god awful amount of regulations.
- Gigachad 3y ago
  It’s always the same objection to every new apartment “but what about the traffic? the roads can’t support this.” If we built this we wouldn’t need traffic…
atleastoptimal 3y ago
It's not even about the car lobby. It's about individual vs. collective choice. For an individual, it is better to have a car than to use public transit, but for society, it is worse that more public spending, resources and city design is geared towards accommodating more cars than public transit. However no one is going to sacrifice their personal well being via giving up their car. The solution is to pay people not to buy cars.
- arcticbull 3y ago
  > For an individual, it is better to have a car than to use public transit. Respectfully I disagree. Not only is it significantly more expensive, you have a lot less freedom. Freedom isn't the ability to drive to the middle of the desert, it's to get to where you want to go without being beholden to a metal box that's liable to kill you. We had that, and we can have it again. Not having to deal with parking, not having to deal with traffic, gas, etc, is actually great. Not having to worry about whether I can risk a drink and therefore increase the risk of murdering a family is great. It doesn't work for everyone, obviously those living in remote areas, but for most people, transit is straight up better in every way. We sacrificed our wellbeing when we bought into car culture.
  - quietbritishjim 3y ago
    Despite starting with "I disagree", you are clearly in agreement with the parent comment. The fragment you quoted means it is better to each individual separately for themselves to have a car if it has no impact on what everybody else does. If everyone else already has cars, then it's better for you if you also have one because the infrastructure is geared up for that. If nobody has cars then your life is better if you (*only you*) have one – in fact it's great, there's no traffic!
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - majewsky 3y ago
      If you are the only one to own a car, where do you get gas? Or replacement parts?
      - kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 3y ago
        The general store for gas and the blacksmith for parts/repair, obviously. Just like the early 1900s, where OPs rose-tinted glasses are trained.
      - 3y ago
ETH_start 3y ago
This seems quite one-sided. What's the steelman argument in favor of the car? I've heard that it increases labor mobility. I imagine being able to conveniently and independently relocate from remote job markets without substantial transportation infrastructure connecting them to the larger national job market would give workers in remote sites more leverage. Are there any other arguments in favor of cars that you're aware of?
- CalRobert 3y ago
  I'd at least have time for the argument that they enable exploration of areas that are impossible to serve with transport, but that's why I don't actually hate cars, just car dependency. They also saved New York from mountains of horse poop.
  - arcticbull 3y ago
    That's what I'm arguing against also. The default should be 'you don't need a car' - if you insist on having one that's fine, but it shouldn't be subsidized by taxpayers and instead billed at the point of use. Basically all roads should be toll roads. If you want to leave town to a place that isn't served by transit, you can rent one. Most importantly though, cities should not be designed around them but instead around people, bikes and transit. > They also saved New York from mountains of horse poop. Wedding's over, we don't really need the priest anymore ;)
- pandaman 3y ago
  Low density housing. It's being attacked the most in such threads as this because it's likely the main reason of the car adoption. People do love living in detached houses with their own plot of land. Mobility for labor and commerce is also a big plus: any retail business can draw customers from much wider area just as well as employees. Large plants and factories can be built far away from the cities with cheap land and energy.
ta8903 3y ago
I don't see how using horses would have avoided any of those issues.
- fineIllregister 3y ago
  Horse ownership was not as prevalent as car ownership is now. Horses were and are incredibly expensive to own.
badpun 3y ago
> Seems like the doubters were quite right - our ability to go anywhere is now dependent on forking out $25-50K for a car, hundreds of dollars in insurance payments, hundreds of dollars in gas payments, hundreds of dollars in parking, tickets/fines, tolls, registration, licensing. As opposed to what? Horse and buggy? They required constant work and had very limited range. Automobiles were the first innovation that allowed people to truly go anywhere, and conveniently.
- alwayslikethis 3y ago
  But most people don't go to most places. Streetcars and trains are more efficient at bringing people to places that most people want to go. You can still have a car, but having the option to drive isn't the same as having to drive everywhere.
  - badpun 3y ago
    > Streetcars and trains are more efficient at bringing people to places that most people want to go. They rarely are. Between walking to the stop, waiting for train/bus, time on train/bus, then walking from the stop - car is almost always faster. Not to mention, all that walking outside in foul weather and sitting in enclosed places with lots of strangers will get you sick regularly. That's my experience, from European cities with good public transport systems.
    - carlmr 3y ago
      >Not to mention, all that walking outside in foul weather and sitting in enclosed places with lots of strangers will get you sick regularly. In my experience your immune system adapts. If you switch you will be a bit more sick for a year, but then you get a stronger immune system and it goes back to normal again.
    - nayuki 3y ago
      > Between walking to the stop, waiting for train/bus, time on train/bus, then walking from the stop - car is almost always faster. Until 100 people want to do the same thing as you, each in their own car. Traffic congestion and parking are painful. Mass transit exists for a reason.
throw0101b 3y ago
> Not to mention all the taxes paid for the road, interstates, etc. Though it should be noted that roads had existed before cars (and were paved with the help of cycling advocates), and interstates/highways between cities are useful for commerce. It is the extreme focus on making everything car-centric for personal transportation that is the problem. Having cars as an option isn't a bad thing; having them as a necessity is where most of the issues come from.
- pandaman 3y ago
  Ancient Romans already had been building paved roads, 2000 years before the "cycling advocates" became a thing.
  - throw0101b 3y ago
    I don't remember Cicero or Virgil agitating for the paving of roads in the 1800s and 1900s. Do you have any citations of their speeches on the topic? (What the Romans did in 1 AD is irrelevant to what municipalities did in 1901 AD.)

CalRobert 3y ago

Paywall for life.

hifromLA 3y ago

Not to mention how car dependence makes it hard to densify our cities enough to build our way out of the housing crisis we have.

hotstickyballs 3y ago
The housing crisis is exactly how densification starts. It will happen when market forces are allowed to work despite the god awful amount of regulations.
Gigachad 3y ago
It’s always the same objection to every new apartment “but what about the traffic? the roads can’t support this.” If we built this we wouldn’t need traffic…

atleastoptimal 3y ago

It's not even about the car lobby. It's about individual vs. collective choice. For an individual, it is better to have a car than to use public transit, but for society, it is worse that more public spending, resources and city design is geared towards accommodating more cars than public transit. However no one is going to sacrifice their personal well being via giving up their car. The solution is to pay people not to buy cars.

arcticbull 3y ago
> For an individual, it is better to have a car than to use public transit. Respectfully I disagree. Not only is it significantly more expensive, you have a lot less freedom. Freedom isn't the ability to drive to the middle of the desert, it's to get to where you want to go without being beholden to a metal box that's liable to kill you. We had that, and we can have it again. Not having to deal with parking, not having to deal with traffic, gas, etc, is actually great. Not having to worry about whether I can risk a drink and therefore increase the risk of murdering a family is great. It doesn't work for everyone, obviously those living in remote areas, but for most people, transit is straight up better in every way. We sacrificed our wellbeing when we bought into car culture.
- quietbritishjim 3y ago
  Despite starting with "I disagree", you are clearly in agreement with the parent comment. The fragment you quoted means it is better to each individual separately for themselves to have a car if it has no impact on what everybody else does. If everyone else already has cars, then it's better for you if you also have one because the infrastructure is geared up for that. If nobody has cars then your life is better if you (*only you*) have one – in fact it's great, there's no traffic!
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - majewsky 3y ago
    If you are the only one to own a car, where do you get gas? Or replacement parts?
    - kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 3y ago
      The general store for gas and the blacksmith for parts/repair, obviously. Just like the early 1900s, where OPs rose-tinted glasses are trained.
    - 3y ago

ETH_start 3y ago

This seems quite one-sided. What's the steelman argument in favor of the car? I've heard that it increases labor mobility. I imagine being able to conveniently and independently relocate from remote job markets without substantial transportation infrastructure connecting them to the larger national job market would give workers in remote sites more leverage. Are there any other arguments in favor of cars that you're aware of?

CalRobert 3y ago
I'd at least have time for the argument that they enable exploration of areas that are impossible to serve with transport, but that's why I don't actually hate cars, just car dependency. They also saved New York from mountains of horse poop.
- arcticbull 3y ago
  That's what I'm arguing against also. The default should be 'you don't need a car' - if you insist on having one that's fine, but it shouldn't be subsidized by taxpayers and instead billed at the point of use. Basically all roads should be toll roads. If you want to leave town to a place that isn't served by transit, you can rent one. Most importantly though, cities should not be designed around them but instead around people, bikes and transit. > They also saved New York from mountains of horse poop. Wedding's over, we don't really need the priest anymore ;)
pandaman 3y ago
Low density housing. It's being attacked the most in such threads as this because it's likely the main reason of the car adoption. People do love living in detached houses with their own plot of land. Mobility for labor and commerce is also a big plus: any retail business can draw customers from much wider area just as well as employees. Large plants and factories can be built far away from the cities with cheap land and energy.

ta8903 3y ago

I don't see how using horses would have avoided any of those issues.

fineIllregister 3y ago
Horse ownership was not as prevalent as car ownership is now. Horses were and are incredibly expensive to own.

badpun 3y ago

> Seems like the doubters were quite right - our ability to go anywhere is now dependent on forking out $25-50K for a car, hundreds of dollars in insurance payments, hundreds of dollars in gas payments, hundreds of dollars in parking, tickets/fines, tolls, registration, licensing. As opposed to what? Horse and buggy? They required constant work and had very limited range. Automobiles were the first innovation that allowed people to truly go anywhere, and conveniently.

alwayslikethis 3y ago
But most people don't go to most places. Streetcars and trains are more efficient at bringing people to places that most people want to go. You can still have a car, but having the option to drive isn't the same as having to drive everywhere.
- badpun 3y ago
  > Streetcars and trains are more efficient at bringing people to places that most people want to go. They rarely are. Between walking to the stop, waiting for train/bus, time on train/bus, then walking from the stop - car is almost always faster. Not to mention, all that walking outside in foul weather and sitting in enclosed places with lots of strangers will get you sick regularly. That's my experience, from European cities with good public transport systems.
  - carlmr 3y ago
    >Not to mention, all that walking outside in foul weather and sitting in enclosed places with lots of strangers will get you sick regularly. In my experience your immune system adapts. If you switch you will be a bit more sick for a year, but then you get a stronger immune system and it goes back to normal again.
  - nayuki 3y ago
    > Between walking to the stop, waiting for train/bus, time on train/bus, then walking from the stop - car is almost always faster. Until 100 people want to do the same thing as you, each in their own car. Traffic congestion and parking are painful. Mass transit exists for a reason.

throw0101b 3y ago

> Not to mention all the taxes paid for the road, interstates, etc. Though it should be noted that roads had existed before cars (and were paved with the help of cycling advocates), and interstates/highways between cities are useful for commerce. It is the extreme focus on making everything car-centric for personal transportation that is the problem. Having cars as an option isn't a bad thing; having them as a necessity is where most of the issues come from.

pandaman 3y ago
Ancient Romans already had been building paved roads, 2000 years before the "cycling advocates" became a thing.
- throw0101b 3y ago
  I don't remember Cicero or Virgil agitating for the paving of roads in the 1800s and 1900s. Do you have any citations of their speeches on the topic? (What the Romans did in 1 AD is irrelevant to what municipalities did in 1901 AD.)