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I've said it before and I'll say it again: building the future around cars of any kind is completely unsustainable. We cannot reproduce the rates of rich world

I've said it before and I'll say it again: building the future around cars of any kind is completely unsustainable. We cannot reproduce the rates of rich world car ownership in the developing world without mass catastrophe (raw materials/labor needed for construction and maintenance, raw materials/labor/space needed for roads and parking lots, literal tons of waste--batteries, tires, steel, plastic, foam--, energy needed--most cars are driven by a single driver, pollution generated by all of this--e.g. mining byproducts and tire burn off). To be completely explicit: - If we're serious about meeting the 2030 "halve our emissions" and 2050 "zero our emissions" goals, EVs will not get there. Banning gas/diesel cars gets there. The only way that's even remotely possible is to heavily subsidize EVs (probably honestly just providing free swaps) and start making it way way more easier to get by w/o a car. - The only problem that self-driving cars will ever solve is where to put VC money in a zero interest rate world. We've had freight trains and mass transit for centuries. I get that whole economies are built around producing/maintaining cars and related infra, but it was wildly disastrous. We're well into sunk cost fallacy territory here, like, on a species level.

Angostura 3y ago
> EVs will not get there. Banning gas/diesel cars gets there. So we can have EVs as long as we ban petrol/diesel cars?
PaulHoule 3y ago
The trouble with trains is they are unresponsive to people’s needs. The #1 problem w/ trains in Europe is they are frequently two or three times the cost of air travel. So long as that is the case Europe has a carbon problem. I guess you could make air travel three times as expensive but isn’t the answer, if you don’t want far-right populist parties to take over, to get the cost of rail down? In the U.S. we have almost forgotten the memory of resentment against railroads (eg. the word “railroading”) who would build tracks past your town but no station, instead they’d build the stationa few miles up the track where they owned all the land and could take all the profit of rising real estate values. No wonder people were in such a hurry to tear up all the old railroad right of way as soon as they had the opportunity. This sci-fi novel https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250883001/theterraformers https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250883001/theterraformers spins a scenario where people who can’t imagine they can afford to eat meat (kinda ridiculous when they can 3-d print organisms and have enough energy to spare to drive plate tectonics) reject the idea of building a planetary transit system based on rail because: doesn’t the current generation get to decide where they go and not have that decision forced on them?
enqk 3y ago
This has to include some thoughts on how to get vehicles to drastically lower their weights...
- dublinben 3y ago
  An e-bike weighs orders of magnitude less than an electric car.
- camgunz 3y ago
  I really just don't think there's any benefit to trying to fix cars (I keep thinking "stop trying to make fetch/cars happen" from Mean Girls haha). My strong opinion is the way you fix the weight problem in EVs isn't to hope for better battery efficiency or w/e, it's to replace it w/ an ebike and a raincoat.
  - actuallyalys 3y ago
    I largely agree, but it would still be a good problem to solve because it would make electric buses and the cars that can’t be replaced lighter.
    - camgunz 3y ago
      I'm a little naive to the weight problem, is it really an issue for like, buses? Is this actually an area where trams (gasp!) are better?
      - actuallyalys 3y ago
        I realized I had just assumed that electric buses were significantly heavier than ICE buses. They can be much heavier; however, using an aluminum frame or smaller batteries (if you don't need the range), can bring the weight down considerably. It's hard to get exact weights because the weight varies by configuration. I was mostly thinking of efficiency issues. But apparently, they have lead to issues with road wear in Indianapolis[0], although this may in part be due to poor planning on the transit agency or public works' part. Trams and trolley buses do solve this issue [0]: https://www.wrtv.com/news/working-for-you/indygo-reconstructing-red-line-less-than-3-years-after-original-construction https://www.wrtv.com/news/working-for-you/indygo-reconstruct...
ben0x539 3y ago
> probably honestly just providing free swaps There has to be a way to do the subsidizing thing that doesn't pay people who have a car to continue having a car, over people who haven't had a car and/or will stop having one...
- camgunz 3y ago
  I like this point, my mind immediately goes to "swap your ICE for an EV or an e-bike and $20k". I honestly think that deal is so good you'd see car theft spike. Maybe that's fine? We're in wild times haha.
  - ben0x539 3y ago
    Admittedly I drove a pretty worthless car, but when I moved to a denser city and stopped driving, something like "swap your car for a lifetime public transportation pass" would have been really, really tempting, too.
    - camgunz 3y ago
      Damn that's a good idea
  - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
    Some cities introducing low emissions zones have done exactly this for poorer residents with older ICE cars. They get cash bonuses plus mass transit passes, vouchers for car shares etc.. Annex 1 of this document lists and links to various things that are in place in various cities around the world: https://cleancitiescampaign.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Win-win_5-fast-and-fair-solutions-for-cleaning-up-urban-transport.pdf https://cleancitiescampaign.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/W...
lnsru 3y ago
I don’t think, that we’re getting back to the tech level of 1960s in Soviet Union. There were cars for important people and government. The rest lived in the big buildings around factories.
willio58 3y ago
Fully agreed. And while everything you said is super important and true, one piece that really makes me pumped about this movement to ditch cars is more around quality of life. If you have to get in a car and drive to a parking lot somewhere to get groceries, commute to work, go out with friends, get healthcare, etc. You will obviously live a less healthy life both physically but also mentally because of it. Walking is exercise, it's something we were all evolved to do and it keeps us healthy physically and mentally. It also encourages community when everyone isn't surrounded by a metal and plastic multi-ton machine. I recently moved to a walkable part of my city and it's actually amazing how much it's benefited my life. I say hi to neighbors and people who walk routes like I do, I get fresh air since not every street is filled to the brim with cars, but honestly one of the best effects is silence. Cars our LOUD. Even electric cars unfortunately, it really has little to do with the sound of the engine at speeds like 30mph, it's more about wind and tire noise. Meanwhile, people walking, biking, or on scooters are silent and it's brought me a lot of peace.
- uneekname 3y ago
  I totally agree about the noise and health benefits, but to me it's more a matter of respect and safety. In the U.S., we see too many pedestrians die each year. Our roads are built for cars only, with everything else as an afterthought. When I cross the street, drivers act like it's my responsibility to stay out of their way. If some people need to use cars for mobility or business reasons, that is fine with me. But they need to have the utmost respect for me as a pedestrian/bicyclist. And the way to accomplish that is to make streets that force cars to slow down and watch out. If we make our cities safe for walking and biking, more people will do so!
  - willio58 3y ago
    > If some people need to use cars for mobility or business reasons, that is fine with me. Definitely. For stuff like that, emergency services, delivery, trash collection, etc. larger vehicles on streets are totally fine and I think most would agree. I don't even necessarily think we should ban all cars, but we should definitely stop incentivizing them by heavily subsidizing car infrastructure with city budgets funded by taxpayers. I think if we stop the incentives that were heavily lobbied for by car companies we'll find the _true_ most efficient ways to build cities which will most likely be heavily geared toward walkability and bike-ability, public transport, etc.
mattmaroon 3y ago
I think that that’s not only incorrect, it’s exactly what we are going to do and it will be fine. Also self-driving cars would help quite a bit if they actually work. It’s only been just a place to park money because they don’t yet. No technology is a solution to anything until it actually exists.
thegrim22 3y ago
Remember when 20 years ago if anybody had doubts with the way things were heading we were told "there's no war on cars you conspiracy theorist, nobody's going to come for your cars you conspiracy theorist"? After 20 years they've made enough progress shaping the narrative that they no longer need to lie and hide their agenda they can just put it in the open.
- estebank 3y ago
  The thing that continues to happen is that people living in rural towns think that cities changing their mobility priorities to decenter cars is a personal affront. People asking to properly account for the negative externalities of car ownership can be construed as a war on cars through taxation, or as a removal of a subsidy. The only difference is framing.
  - DoneWithAllThat 3y ago
    The thing that continues to happen is urban residents with limited understanding of the world outside their bubble think a future without cars is anything but a laughably naive fantasy driven by an entirely imaginary utopian ideal.
    - estebank 3y ago
      A future with significantly reduced car traffic in cities? It's perfectly possible. Cars will never completely disappear, only someone that hasn't thought about the problem or that is building a straw man would say that. Car ownership in the US is ~90% (more than one per adult). In The Netherlands it is ~50%. They still have a car per family for longer trips, but they don't need them for every trip, so they use them significantly less.
      - TheGRS 3y ago
        I would venture that if people actually tried living in a neighborhood that has ample foot traffic access they would love it. You don't need to be in the "city" proper, just a neighborhood with some corner store and a public park nearby. This is not a wild concept to implement at the city planning level at all.
superkuh 3y ago
Not everyone lives in a perfect temperate coastal environment that doesn't get winter. And no, European winters are not really that cold and their use of bikes is not a good comparison. Especially since the distances involved are far smaller for them. Cars are vital in many regions.
- bluGill 3y ago
  In North America, the farther north you go - and thus the colder the winters - the more people bike year round. It is a small minority for sure, but cold is not a problem on a bike as they prove. (I haven't got the guts to bike when it is -20, but that is something some do)
  - avar 3y ago
    Winters tend to be colder the further inland you go, e.g. daytime temperatures in Germany in the coldest parts of winter are typically lower than in Iceland.
    - bluGill 3y ago
      Minneapolis is an inland climate colder than Germany in winter, yet Minneapolis is (for the US) a place known for the number of people who bike year round.
      - superkuh 3y ago
        I posted using the twin cities metro area as my reference. Maybe in the downtown core of the cities this is true but biking in winter is not an option for the majority of the population in the combined metro area.
- david-gpu 3y ago
  I have lived in Toronto, Canada, for 15 years and never had a car. My family gets around all year by walking, public transit and cycling. Most people live in urban centers where it is perfectly possible to live without a car. And as car use decreases, public transit availability will increase, together with other forms of transportation that don't have the externalities of private motor vehicles.
cedws 3y ago
People are selfish and DGAF. They will continue to buy the latest and biggest Range Rovers and Ford trucks (pedestrian death machines) to take their kids to school because they desperately need to signal how well off they are. Cars are a disgustingly polluting outlet for people to show off. IMO we should be banning big cars, possibly even legislating new cars are no bigger than a Japanese "Kei" car. Speed restrictions to go with it of course. We should also be putting effort into reducing traffic to reduce emissions. If a road needs to come to a halt every 2 minutes for pedestrians, that adds up on a busy road. Building overpasses/underpasses in urban areas could improve traffic flow significantly.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
  So we need to invent an alternative visible and expensive status symbol. Back to gold watches?
  - reocha 3y ago
    Gold plated rims for ebikes
  - svnt 3y ago
    Electric palanquins.
- FredPret 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - cedws 3y ago
    Didn't say anything about nobody being allowed cars.
    - FredPret 3y ago
      Totally, it’s only the cars you don‘t like that are to be banned.
tfrutuoso 3y ago
That's very elitist. Not everyone lives in large cities with whole mass transit systems or works the usual 9-5. Even in large urban areas it's tricky to get around past a certain time. I remember working unexpected shifts and later staring at closed metro stations, having to walk in the rain to get home. No thanks. Also, some people like cars. Deal with it, i'm not ditching for an e-bike or whatever. An electric motorcycle actually sounds nice though, if not for the battery weight.
- CrispyKerosene 3y ago
  It sucks, but it doesn't have to be that way. Even small towns can be sufficiently served by viable public transit options. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztpcWUqVpIg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztpcWUqVpIg
- estebank 3y ago
  You've identified a problem: public transport in some places sucks. But then veered away from the obvious solution: invest in it to make it not suck.
  - zzzeek 3y ago
    throwing money at urban problems does not necessarily have a great track record, and NYCTA has had lots of issues with corruption when they do have money to spend. Id be pretty skeptical that giving them a lot of money would mean you can hop on a train in 5 minutes at 2 am, it wouldnt even be cost effective to run that many trains at odd hours. Cars are terrific for this use case, however. NYC cops have like a billion dollar budget and while they are great at protecting businesses in wealthy areas they are not very popular in lower income areas as they are both blase and overly brutal at the same time, their huge budget not having helped that aspect very much.
    - estebank 3y ago
      Somehow the argument against more money for infrastructure is never levied against freeway expansions.
1234letshaveatw 3y ago
Extremist nonsense. Why not restrict access to electronics, heating and cooling and lighting in the developing world? Meanwhile, here on earth, there are and will be micro EVs, trucks and busses and material advancements for batteries and recycling. Just take a look at the chinese market, there are many affordable options for the everyman. Also, if you don't think self driving cars will solve any problems you haven't driven anything with level 2/3 cruise control. Transport modernization in the developing world will be analogous to mobile phone proliferation in the developing world (in place of having a POTS), it doesn't have to mirror Norway
cornholio 3y ago
There is a little something that's missing from the analysis above: what people actually want. And what many people want, across many cultures once they reach a certain level of wealth, is the suburban home: low density living in isolated housing units set in a park like environment with ample greenery. Just look at almost any billionaire's mansion and you will see this pattern which becomes an aspiration for the middle class. Most people, given enough wealth, desire and choose the McMansion. This choice, replicated across millions of families, has massive implications: urban sprawl and low density make transit unworkable, shops need large catchment areas that can't no longer be reached on foot or bike, and it all devolves into car dependency. These communities will need point to point transport for the foreseeable future. So you either double down and hand-wave reality away "no, we'll just build high density housing along transit corridors", or you accept that people won't magically do what you think is right, and find real solutions. Electrifying cars is the low effort solution, but we could imagine making point to point transport more like public transit, for example, a Boring company Loop- type system where pods exit the tunnels and complete the last mile on the street level, of where self-driving taxis get you to a multi-modal terminal where you can catch a traditional train for the city center.
- Moldoteck 3y ago
  It's possible to have both: bike stations near train stations. Ppl from suburbs/low density areas go with bike to train station, and to their destination with the train. You may say ppl don't want this and this may be true, it's about tradeoffs: do you optimise for medium-high density or for low. Nowadays us/canada&even some europe does for low density
- brugidou 3y ago
  There are plenty of dense cities around the world where I'm sure the owners of apartments in the (walkable) center would have enough money to buy a house/McMansion in a nice suburb. And some do. But plenty don't. And building dense walkable cities with nice public transportation works very well and does not make these cities less attractive as far as I can tell.
- marssaxman 3y ago
  If that were true, you'd expect suburban houses to be more expensive than those in the city, but in reality it is generally the opposite. Here in Seattle, we watch the urban population grow in lockstep with the availability of new housing, year after year, while the cost of that housing continues to rise - much faster than the general rate of inflation. Simple economics suggests that city life must be very desirable, and that the urban population would be growing even faster if more housing were being built: therefore, some fraction of those people who end up in the suburbs are moving there not because it is their preference, but because wealthier people have outbid them for the more desirable city life. This is what people mean when they complain about gentrification. You cannot be sure Americans actually want to live in suburbs when that is all that most of them have to choose from, and that is the case because American zoning codes adopted in the mid 20th century made it difficult to build much of anything else. Car dependency was created, by law; do not mistake it for revealed preference.
ravenstine 3y ago
> We cannot reproduce the rates of rich world car ownership in the developing world without mass catastrophe That's incredible! Now show us some evidence.
- Moldoteck 3y ago
  Evidence like total cost of car infra vs taxes that ppl pay? Evidence that low density areas are subsidized by high density? All this info is freely available online. Difference is US can afford to be in debt, other countries - not so much
  - ravenstine 3y ago
    Those may be serious problems, but nothing about that says that "mass catastrophe" necessarily follows. Language like that is implying something approaching apocalyptic. > All this info is freely available online. Given that the internet is full of conflicting information, and that you seem to know far more about this issue than I do, perhaps you could share a link to some of this information from a source you find credible? I would like to trust you over whatever is at the top of search engine results.
    - camgunz 3y ago
      I don't have a source. I just think that the habitat loss from roads/parking lots is massive, pavement changes watersheds, tires cause massive pollution, rubber farms and plants are disgusting, iron ore mines are disgusting, rare earth mineral mines are disgusting, the money we'd spend on building/buying/maintaining cars and their infrastructure is an unimaginable blunder (literally trillions), waste cars are a disaster. Like if something came from space and forced this on us it would be a total catastrophe. Us choosing it doesn't change that fact.
    - Moldoteck 3y ago
      The guy in this thread provided a link to strongtowns, there are other sources too, but I suggest starting with it since they cover most of what I'we written. For me, mass catastrophe is not just referring to economic side(imo failing to maintain car infra bc it costs too much at some point bc of low density of population & high wear of the roads is pretty bad) but also the time lost on travel compounded over years for all ppl bc of the spread, the isolation of the ppl from each other, limited mobility options for old ppl or ppl with disabilities, higher pollution (even if we replace all cars with electro, it doesn't solve pollution fully, bc of tire wear particles, tonns of asphalt that should be renewed bc of many cars, etc...). When added all together, the image is not looking good. Us can 'afford' this bc of usd/dollar, loans and their economic position globally(when I write afford I mean they can afford to ignore the problem, at least for some time) but for other countries it may result in an economic suicide
concordDance 3y ago
> The only problem that self-driving cars will ever solve is where to put VC money in a zero interest rate world. We've had freight trains and mass transit for centuries. They solve stress from a 30 minute daily commute. Public transport is never door to door and there are always changeovers and cancellations, while self driving cars on demand can be door to door and is far less dependant on whether there's a labour dispute or leaves on the tracks. They save thousands of hours per person over a working life. (Also, before you comment: remote work doesn't suit everyone or every job and being able to work in a job that doesn't have to be within a few miles of your home and your partner's job is a huge flexibility, efficiency and career boost)
- gemstones 3y ago
  In my walkable neighborhood you know how this problem is solved? The same way it was solved for centuries, high foot traffic incentivized a small grocer to pop up within walking distance. People in the neighborhood generally take jobs in the neighborhood, because there is high foot traffic, so there are jobs. Even doctors and nurses can get in on that, because it’s dense enough that a hospital is easy walking or biking distance, and their jobs are 100% not remote-friendly.
  - concordDance 3y ago
    Let's say I work in reinsurance. How many reinsurance companies do you think are within walking distance? It's an odd fact of life that as countries get more developed the people in them more heavily specialise. This is one of the reasons cities have much higher wealth production per capita than towns. If everyone is very unspecialized (e.g. "general practitioner" rather than "expert in non-hodgkins limphomas") then walking and biking could work okay, there should be a couple of jobs in range (having alternative employment options is vital for healthy employee-employer relations). But that's just not how an advanced global economy works.
    - david-gpu 3y ago
      Somehow most developed countries around the world have figured out how to design cities around walking, public transit and cycling, but it's an insurmountable problem in the US? It's not magic, folks, just look at how it is done elsewhere. Yes, that includes places with "real winters".
deleted 3y ago
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freeopinion 3y ago
Transportation spans a huge spectrum. From walking to hoverboards to bicycles, e-bikes, motorcycles, cars, trucks, semis, trains, planes, cargo ships, etc. Gasoline/diesel vs electricity is orthogonal to most of that. So is "self-driving". It is great to have progress in batteries and charging. It is great to have progress in bicycle wheels and in snowmobile treads. It's great to have advances in cheaper rail beds and rotary masts. It would be amazing if we had serious innovation on creating safer separation of transportation modes that promoted more progress on multiple axes simultaneously.
lost_tourist 3y ago
1st point will never happen in democracies 2nd point is also debatable in western democracies. What you proscribe is only possible (currently) in dictatorships. It may be possible in 20 years after many more weather and climate disasters
IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago
If you live in a suburban house, with a yard, and drive a car, its likely poster is part of the problem. Its easy to externalize blame and point fingers to something/someone else, when the reality is that people need to look inward. The uncomfortable truth is these macro policy desires, are very much a case of "Do as I say, not as I do" I speak this as someone that does not own a car, or have a yard, and drive a moped everywhere. Yet, I don't want to restrict anyone in the future from owning a car (gas, if cost is an issue for the poor), or living in the suburbs.
- camgunz 3y ago
  I don't think you're wrong per se, but I hesitate to say that the problems we have are that everyone individually but also en masse decided to move to the suburbs and also drive big honkin' cars everywhere, all the time. I think it's more likely there were systems and incentives (both economic and cultural) that led to this. I think this is actually good news, because it means we can fix this with some (slow) cultural shifts and (less slow, hopefully) policy changes. If we really had to directly convince 10,000,000s of people to move into townhomes we'd have no hope. (FWIW I've lived in lots of places, tiny apartments, townhomes, big apartments, single rooms, mcmansions, old houses. I've been lucky enough to more or less choose them--most people live wherever they can--and for the last ~10 years have chosen tiny apartment. I like the idea of living small, they're a lot more maintainable, cheaper, and I used to move a lot so having a ceiling on the amount of stuff I could have was real attractive)
- Arelius 3y ago
  Isn't it a bit audacious to assume the parent lives in a suburban home with a yard and drives a car? Many people don't. And it'd often a choice of values and principles. Of which the parent shared theirs.
- KennyBlanken 3y ago
  I have a suburban/rural house, with a yard, and drive a car. I also put over 2000 miles a year on an ebike, which equates to about 30kWhr of electricity. That e-bike is designed to take a substantial amount of cargo, or two kids. I can get to the post office, polling place, local deli, library, and a bar in about 5 minutes. The supermarket, pharmacy, pizza shops, restaurant, bank, hardware store etc in 15 minutes. A friend I visit regularly is 15 miles away which I consistently do in under 40 minutes versus about 25-30 in the car, even though the route I take to avoid a single-lane undivided highway is longer. Yes, a lot of rural/suburban neighborhoods are isolated by wildly unsafe roads between them and services. But in many, it's very easy to get to many of the places you need to go, via bicycle.
bluejekyll 3y ago
> The only way that's even remotely possible is to heavily subsidize EVs (probably honestly just providing free swaps) I think that is in contradiction to your initial statement, > building the future around cars of any kind is completely unsustainable. We cannot reproduce the rates of rich world car ownership in the developing world without mass catastrophe… Subsidizing car ownership will only make these goals harder to attain. Swapping the car out for free for an EV bike, that would be great. Subsidizing only the people who need a car, ok (ambulatory issues, etc), but we should not subsidize car ownership in general. The other part of this that I’m becoming more aware of as it’s researched more, is that the Air Quality in an area is actually more effected by dust and particulate matter from tires, brakes, and roadways than greenhouse gases (this is different from Climate impacting Greenhouse gas effects). What this means is that EV cars won’t fix the Air Quality of an area, but EV bikes definitely would. In short, I agree with your initial statement, but it’s how we get there that needs some adjustment. Leverage more transit and bikes as solutions rather than subsidizing car ownership.
- InSteady 3y ago
  >Air Quality Adding to this, it also appears that even low levels of PM 2.5 air pollution has negative impacts on health over a long timeframe (including increased risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, death, and more). WHO is now recommending average annual exposure targets should be set 2-3 times lower than current EPA levels and a whopping 5 times lower than EU standards. Serious health complications occur above this level. [1] [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10097564/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10097564/
- camgunz 3y ago
  Yeah, maybe. I just think politically a car buyback program will be somehow less popular than a gun buyback program, and outlawing ICEs even less so.
xkekjrktllss 3y ago
> building the future around cars of any kind is completely unsustainable But it's potentially profitable in our highly financialized economy, and nothing else is. > If we're serious about meeting the 2030 "halve our emissions" and 2050 "zero our emissions" goals, EVs will not get there Their purpose is merely to rescue the coastal urban California real estate prices by displacing the pollution to a less wealthy geographical area. The rest is just marketing. > I get that whole economies are built around producing/maintaining cars and related infra, but it was wildly disastrous. Wrong. Whole economies are built around profit and that is what's disasterous. > We're well into sunk cost fallacy territory here, like, on a species level. You're wrong again to think we had a choice. Capitalism pits everyone against each other in ruthless pursuits of profit for the sake of survival and life meaning. It's more than economic gridlock; it's social gridlock.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> only problem that self-driving cars will ever solve is where to put VC money in a zero interest rate world. We've had freight trains and mass transit for centuries. Wouldn’t write these off so quickly. I know two people who ditched their cars in Phoenix, one of whom went car free, because of Waymo. (By analogy: without cabs and Ubers, many more New Yorkers would have a car parked in an outer borough.)
- volkl48 3y ago
  I will point out that getting around by cab is only really "solving" the problem of urban car storage and not....any other issues with cars in urban environments, like traffic or the portion of public space devoted to car travel lanes. And in some cases they may actually make traffic worse with increased circling behaviors in the highest-demand (and often, most congested) parts of the city.
geraldwhen 3y ago
My work requires me to come to office on certain days. Not only are there no sidewalks to the office, the roads are egregiously unsafe even in a car. Even if a moped or bike were feasible, there’s nowhere to live within any reasonable distance. The office is isolated on the big acreage it purchased. If I could, I would bike a half hour to work, easily. I can’t. It’s just not safe. Everything is built for big, fast cars.
- ahoy 3y ago
  It's an incredible crime that basically no american can live within 5 miles of their work. Car companies ad the government that capitulated to them fucked us so bad.
  - geraldwhen 3y ago
    I’m not much farther, but there are no pedestrian routes to get there, just highways or roads with no shoulder at 55mph.
patagonia 3y ago
To be completely explicit, you're telling anyone with any need or desire to pull a trailer or go off publicly planned and constructed roadways that their needs or desires are not even on the table for discussion. I don't believe it is in fact necessary to eliminate cars as a primary mode of transportation in the future in order to meet climate goals. But, even if it was, the argument just will not fly with many many many people. I could easily counter with the argument that we should keep cars but eliminate all air and boat transportation (and recreation) and eliminate the future production of computers. The path forward will not look like either of these proposals.
- Gud 3y ago
  You don’t need to own a car to do this. The simple fact is, public transport in most places sucks. I’ve moved to Zürich, and there is no way I’ll drive a car willingly again. Taking the tram everywhere is extremely liberating.
  - patagonia 3y ago
    I lived in New York City for 5 years. I loved it. I didn't own a car. I took the subway, cabs, trains, and planes everywhere. But, I didn't go camping or own a boat. I live in South Carolina now where I tow my catamaran to different regattas or just to the beach for fun. I go camping with an amount of gear that would be completely unreasonable to take on a train. Public transportation does not allow for the same activities as a car or truck. That's just obviously true. I'd be happy to give up my car. I would not give up sailing or the type of camping I do. People that hunt, should they give up hunting because they can't transport their game? How are contractors going to get equipment to the worksite? Cars/trucks/vehicles are not just for moving people.
    - nradov 3y ago
      Well obviously middle class people shouldn't be allowed to go sailing if that conflicts with urban planning and climate justice goals. Such activities should be restricted to the elites who can afford to keep their private yachts moored in the local marina. All for the greater good.
CalRobert 3y ago
I think the hardest thing to get across is that _LIFE IS BETTER_ this way. Having 2,000 kgs of metal hurtling by at 80 kph half a meter from your six your old's head while you walk to school SUCKS. It's horrible. But hopping with my 4 year old in the cargo bike and my 6 year old on her own bike is sheer, utter, bliss. Little kids ringing their bells and chatting with new friends on the way to school is a joy that I feel privileged to be able to experience with them. And when you don't surround every building with 3 acres of parking, everything is closer together. It's so much closer together that, for the most part, you don't even need to drive for much. I didn't even _want_ to move to the Netherlands. I wanted to live somewhere I could be car-free and feel safe with my kids biking to school. It's ludicrous that cars have utterly conquered the entire damn planet, and all humans have is a desperate rearguard action in a tiny country largely below sea level. And even here, there's more cars than I'd like.
- deleted 3y ago
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- gloryjulio 3y ago
  It indeed is. I don't even need to drive most of the time when living inside the city. The bike serves most of the needs and it's vastly cheaper.
- lapetitejort 3y ago
  This morning a combination of sun in my eyes, a blind spot, and a dewy morning almost led me to run over two people legally crossing the street. My significant other had to scream at me to stop. I could have killed two people. All I was trying to do was get coffee. I need to get rid of this death machine fast.
  - camgunz 3y ago
    I bumped a cyclist while I was edging out into a blind intersection (one of those that gets parked up all alongside it) because I was looking one way and he raced in front of me from the other. Like, neither of us really did anything wrong, but he was nearly severely injured and I nearly went to prison. Cars are dumb.
sgregnt 3y ago
I like my lifestyle around car, and driving. I lived in Europe without car and woth car in US. Much better in US. And I suspect the world can support 1000× cars easily.
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admax88qqq 3y ago
> start making it way way more easier to get by w/o a car. How exactly could do this by 2030/2050? So much of the existing infrastructure is built at a low density with the expectation of having a car to get around. What do we have to do? Rebuild all our cities at Japan level densities so we can have reasonable tranit options? Ban living in those cities and force everyone to move to a few high density cities? Rebuild all our highways/roads with enough transit infrastructure and staff to let people travel their existing routes without a car? "Make it way way more easier to get by w/o a car" sounds less feasible to me than scaling up EVs.
- ryukafalz 3y ago
  Starting with the areas that already have sufficient density but don't have safe bike infrastructure: build a network of safe bike infrastructure. The area I live in is like this. Philly and its surrounding suburbs are absolutely already dense enough to make cycling a practical way to get around, but it's not particularly safe or pleasant to do so. So there's a lot of low-hanging fruit in places that are already pretty dense. But in addition to that, upzone broadly and remove parking minimums. I think there's a good chance that leads to higher densities pretty quickly in areas with high demand.
akira2501 3y ago
> I've said it before and I'll say it again To the same effect. Perhaps a real study on this issue would be more elucidating? > Banning gas/diesel cars gets there You've effectively ended farming and rural life. > is to heavily subsidize EVs The only reason you have to subsidize them is because they are not adequate replacements for ICE cars. Perhaps if they just made EVs better, people would _want_ them, and they wouldn't be _forced_ into buying them. > The only problem that self-driving cars will ever solve is where to put VC money in a zero interest rate world. People value their own time. Perhaps you don't, but it should rightfully be part of this equation. > I get that whole economies are built around producing/maintaining cars and related infra Yea.. because they are a good utility and serve a real purpose. We didn't decide to build cars, the market demanded them. It's always amazing to me that people will "say it over and over again" to no effect, yet walk past the fact that basic MPG fuel economy hasn't improved in 30 years. > like, on a species level. Or, take any account of exactly how bunker fuel oil shipping consumes.
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hedora 3y ago
I think you need to check your math. There are 14 times more of these electric mopeds, etc than cars, but they only have 4x more impact than the EVs. So one EV displaces about 3.5x more carbon emissions than the mopeds. To make the 2030 halve our emissions deadline, and 2050 net zero deadline with just little city vehicles, we’ll need to abandon the suburbs, exurbs and rural buildings and infrastructure that we already have, and replace it without producing any additional emissions. Also, in the US, most cities that experienced significant growth after ~ 1950 need to have their new parts razed and rebuilt to accommodate public transit routes and add walkable amenities. None of that can possibly happen at sufficient scale in the next 7 years, and it certainly would have massive environmental impact if it did. Alternatively, we could switch all cars to EV’s, use existing construction and infrastructure, and get a > 75% reduction in transportation carbon, even without cleaning up the power grid. In reality, we are already cleaning up the grid, and time of use subsidies are doing a good job of moving time-shiftable demand to high-production times, when the grid is cleaner. EVs are currently one of the biggest, easy to time shift loads. So, we can have a 90% solution to transportation carbon, or go for a 97.5% improvement (rounding the 3.5x improvement moving to mopeds would give up to 4x), but then emit way more carbon than total transportation emissions while we rebuild an unprecedented number of cities all at once. I’m all for public transit, and think all new urban / suburban housing should be built along high capacity transit corridors, but doing that isn’t going to solve global warming in time.
- fulafel 3y ago
  > I think you need to check your math. There are 14 times more of these electric mopeds, etc than cars, but they only have 4x more impact than the EVs. So one EV displaces about 3.5x more carbon emissions than the mopeds. This is not the case. The cited 4x in oil demand is just a part of the main problem (CO2 emissions). E-car carbon emissions over the lifecycle are still ~50% of fossil fuel cars, due to their large manufacturing co2 footprint and impact of the 10-100x higher electricity usage to power them. The battery sizes body masses are O(100x) bigger than e-bikes and energy usage per km O(10x) bigger.
- Enginerrrd 3y ago
  Also I'd just like to add: everyone forgets that not everyone lives near an urban center. It'd be fine to get rid of 90-95% of the internal combustion cars/trucks and then move on to the next biggest target. We don't need to jump to 100% on everything.
kazinator 3y ago
You have to solve housing. Nobody wants to commute 50 miles by electric scooter.
kazinator 3y ago
You have to solve housing and/or transportation. Nobody wants to commute 50 miles by electric scooter; if that's their only viable option other than a car, car it will be.
m463 3y ago
I think you are only telling the gloomy side of the story. I think the answer might be nice if there's a better story. Maybe not so much living without and riding bicycles and walking, but maybe more like: - telecommuting - with government overriding 3-days-in-office ceo stuff - goods delivery instead of shopping, maybe permits/regulations/etc to prevent 1000 delivery vehicles - car rental, or fractional ownership, or something for exceptions - rezoning/rebuilding so neighborhoods have some services within a short distance.
alberth 3y ago
Singapore One approach is to replicate Singapore massive taxation on vehicles, which disincentivizes ownership. To own a vehicle in Singapore, it costs ~2.5x the normal cost due to taxes. As such, it has one of the highest uses of public transit, bicycles and walking in the world.
- b0ner_t0ner 3y ago
  Higher tax is not a must, one can have amazing public transportation infrastructure like in Tokyo or Hong Kong, but most US cities can't do that with all the roads and highways in place.
black_13 3y ago
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pharmakom 3y ago
It doesn’t work in the developed world either. We all hate pollution, sitting in traffic, lack of green space, obesity, lack of childhood autonomy … and yet society seems incapable of coordinating on solving it. Well, except for the Netherlands.
- camgunz 3y ago
  Most of Europe is small, walkable cities. There are of course still highways and city roads, but most things here function as you're describing. Come on over, the water's warm ;)
up2isomorphism 3y ago
Build efficient and affordable public transportation first, and without worrying about getting pushed onto the tracks. Japanese never banned cars, and people are predominantly using public transport. Switzerland never banned cars, and it pollutes far less than US. Also they accomplished that without letting >30mph e-bikers blasting through sidewalks. It is sad a lot of western progressive totally forget about how western civilization was built. And resorting to “macro “ control strategies that never really worked.
ThinkBeat 3y ago
- If we're serious about meeting the 2030 "halve our emissions "We¹" are not serious about it. Biden talks pretty but has increased the production of fossil fuels, beyond what even Trump did and we are now exporting more LNG than any other country. (That changes, we are at the top, the nr 1 spot might change between competitors now and again) Yet we are all so happy with Biden cause he -says- the right words. Same with Norway. So many people saying the right things at the right places with the right photo ops. Yet we are not producing more fossile fuels than ever before. The state has decided that we will increase production until 2026, and -then- we will really cut back. Yeah right. Then we saw last winter many countries opening up coal powerplants again to have enough energy. You cannot be serious about 2030 and the climate in general, when you restart that kind of power plant. ¹ Those who run countries and have been elected to do so.

Angostura 3y ago

> EVs will not get there. Banning gas/diesel cars gets there. So we can have EVs as long as we ban petrol/diesel cars?

PaulHoule 3y ago

The trouble with trains is they are unresponsive to people’s needs. The #1 problem w/ trains in Europe is they are frequently two or three times the cost of air travel. So long as that is the case Europe has a carbon problem. I guess you could make air travel three times as expensive but isn’t the answer, if you don’t want far-right populist parties to take over, to get the cost of rail down? In the U.S. we have almost forgotten the memory of resentment against railroads (eg. the word “railroading”) who would build tracks past your town but no station, instead they’d build the stationa few miles up the track where they owned all the land and could take all the profit of rising real estate values. No wonder people were in such a hurry to tear up all the old railroad right of way as soon as they had the opportunity. This sci-fi novel https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250883001/theterraformers https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250883001/theterraformers spins a scenario where people who can’t imagine they can afford to eat meat (kinda ridiculous when they can 3-d print organisms and have enough energy to spare to drive plate tectonics) reject the idea of building a planetary transit system based on rail because: doesn’t the current generation get to decide where they go and not have that decision forced on them?

enqk 3y ago

This has to include some thoughts on how to get vehicles to drastically lower their weights...

dublinben 3y ago
An e-bike weighs orders of magnitude less than an electric car.
camgunz 3y ago
I really just don't think there's any benefit to trying to fix cars (I keep thinking "stop trying to make fetch/cars happen" from Mean Girls haha). My strong opinion is the way you fix the weight problem in EVs isn't to hope for better battery efficiency or w/e, it's to replace it w/ an ebike and a raincoat.
- actuallyalys 3y ago
  I largely agree, but it would still be a good problem to solve because it would make electric buses and the cars that can’t be replaced lighter.
  - camgunz 3y ago
    I'm a little naive to the weight problem, is it really an issue for like, buses? Is this actually an area where trams (gasp!) are better?
    - actuallyalys 3y ago
      I realized I had just assumed that electric buses were significantly heavier than ICE buses. They can be much heavier; however, using an aluminum frame or smaller batteries (if you don't need the range), can bring the weight down considerably. It's hard to get exact weights because the weight varies by configuration. I was mostly thinking of efficiency issues. But apparently, they have lead to issues with road wear in Indianapolis[0], although this may in part be due to poor planning on the transit agency or public works' part. Trams and trolley buses do solve this issue [0]: https://www.wrtv.com/news/working-for-you/indygo-reconstructing-red-line-less-than-3-years-after-original-construction https://www.wrtv.com/news/working-for-you/indygo-reconstruct...

ben0x539 3y ago

> probably honestly just providing free swaps There has to be a way to do the subsidizing thing that doesn't pay people who have a car to continue having a car, over people who haven't had a car and/or will stop having one...

camgunz 3y ago
I like this point, my mind immediately goes to "swap your ICE for an EV or an e-bike and $20k". I honestly think that deal is so good you'd see car theft spike. Maybe that's fine? We're in wild times haha.
- ben0x539 3y ago
  Admittedly I drove a pretty worthless car, but when I moved to a denser city and stopped driving, something like "swap your car for a lifetime public transportation pass" would have been really, really tempting, too.
  - camgunz 3y ago
    Damn that's a good idea
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  Some cities introducing low emissions zones have done exactly this for poorer residents with older ICE cars. They get cash bonuses plus mass transit passes, vouchers for car shares etc.. Annex 1 of this document lists and links to various things that are in place in various cities around the world: https://cleancitiescampaign.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Win-win_5-fast-and-fair-solutions-for-cleaning-up-urban-transport.pdf https://cleancitiescampaign.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/W...

lnsru 3y ago

I don’t think, that we’re getting back to the tech level of 1960s in Soviet Union. There were cars for important people and government. The rest lived in the big buildings around factories.

willio58 3y ago

Fully agreed. And while everything you said is super important and true, one piece that really makes me pumped about this movement to ditch cars is more around quality of life. If you have to get in a car and drive to a parking lot somewhere to get groceries, commute to work, go out with friends, get healthcare, etc. You will obviously live a less healthy life both physically but also mentally because of it. Walking is exercise, it's something we were all evolved to do and it keeps us healthy physically and mentally. It also encourages community when everyone isn't surrounded by a metal and plastic multi-ton machine. I recently moved to a walkable part of my city and it's actually amazing how much it's benefited my life. I say hi to neighbors and people who walk routes like I do, I get fresh air since not every street is filled to the brim with cars, but honestly one of the best effects is silence. Cars our LOUD. Even electric cars unfortunately, it really has little to do with the sound of the engine at speeds like 30mph, it's more about wind and tire noise. Meanwhile, people walking, biking, or on scooters are silent and it's brought me a lot of peace.

uneekname 3y ago
I totally agree about the noise and health benefits, but to me it's more a matter of respect and safety. In the U.S., we see too many pedestrians die each year. Our roads are built for cars only, with everything else as an afterthought. When I cross the street, drivers act like it's my responsibility to stay out of their way. If some people need to use cars for mobility or business reasons, that is fine with me. But they need to have the utmost respect for me as a pedestrian/bicyclist. And the way to accomplish that is to make streets that force cars to slow down and watch out. If we make our cities safe for walking and biking, more people will do so!
- willio58 3y ago
  > If some people need to use cars for mobility or business reasons, that is fine with me. Definitely. For stuff like that, emergency services, delivery, trash collection, etc. larger vehicles on streets are totally fine and I think most would agree. I don't even necessarily think we should ban all cars, but we should definitely stop incentivizing them by heavily subsidizing car infrastructure with city budgets funded by taxpayers. I think if we stop the incentives that were heavily lobbied for by car companies we'll find the _true_ most efficient ways to build cities which will most likely be heavily geared toward walkability and bike-ability, public transport, etc.

mattmaroon 3y ago

I think that that’s not only incorrect, it’s exactly what we are going to do and it will be fine. Also self-driving cars would help quite a bit if they actually work. It’s only been just a place to park money because they don’t yet. No technology is a solution to anything until it actually exists.

thegrim22 3y ago

Remember when 20 years ago if anybody had doubts with the way things were heading we were told "there's no war on cars you conspiracy theorist, nobody's going to come for your cars you conspiracy theorist"? After 20 years they've made enough progress shaping the narrative that they no longer need to lie and hide their agenda they can just put it in the open.

estebank 3y ago
The thing that continues to happen is that people living in rural towns think that cities changing their mobility priorities to decenter cars is a personal affront. People asking to properly account for the negative externalities of car ownership can be construed as a war on cars through taxation, or as a removal of a subsidy. The only difference is framing.
- DoneWithAllThat 3y ago
  The thing that continues to happen is urban residents with limited understanding of the world outside their bubble think a future without cars is anything but a laughably naive fantasy driven by an entirely imaginary utopian ideal.
  - estebank 3y ago
    A future with significantly reduced car traffic in cities? It's perfectly possible. Cars will never completely disappear, only someone that hasn't thought about the problem or that is building a straw man would say that. Car ownership in the US is ~90% (more than one per adult). In The Netherlands it is ~50%. They still have a car per family for longer trips, but they don't need them for every trip, so they use them significantly less.
    - TheGRS 3y ago
      I would venture that if people actually tried living in a neighborhood that has ample foot traffic access they would love it. You don't need to be in the "city" proper, just a neighborhood with some corner store and a public park nearby. This is not a wild concept to implement at the city planning level at all.

superkuh 3y ago

Not everyone lives in a perfect temperate coastal environment that doesn't get winter. And no, European winters are not really that cold and their use of bikes is not a good comparison. Especially since the distances involved are far smaller for them. Cars are vital in many regions.

bluGill 3y ago
In North America, the farther north you go - and thus the colder the winters - the more people bike year round. It is a small minority for sure, but cold is not a problem on a bike as they prove. (I haven't got the guts to bike when it is -20, but that is something some do)
- avar 3y ago
  Winters tend to be colder the further inland you go, e.g. daytime temperatures in Germany in the coldest parts of winter are typically lower than in Iceland.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    Minneapolis is an inland climate colder than Germany in winter, yet Minneapolis is (for the US) a place known for the number of people who bike year round.
    - superkuh 3y ago
      I posted using the twin cities metro area as my reference. Maybe in the downtown core of the cities this is true but biking in winter is not an option for the majority of the population in the combined metro area.
david-gpu 3y ago
I have lived in Toronto, Canada, for 15 years and never had a car. My family gets around all year by walking, public transit and cycling. Most people live in urban centers where it is perfectly possible to live without a car. And as car use decreases, public transit availability will increase, together with other forms of transportation that don't have the externalities of private motor vehicles.

cedws 3y ago

People are selfish and DGAF. They will continue to buy the latest and biggest Range Rovers and Ford trucks (pedestrian death machines) to take their kids to school because they desperately need to signal how well off they are. Cars are a disgustingly polluting outlet for people to show off. IMO we should be banning big cars, possibly even legislating new cars are no bigger than a Japanese "Kei" car. Speed restrictions to go with it of course. We should also be putting effort into reducing traffic to reduce emissions. If a road needs to come to a halt every 2 minutes for pedestrians, that adds up on a busy road. Building overpasses/underpasses in urban areas could improve traffic flow significantly.

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
So we need to invent an alternative visible and expensive status symbol. Back to gold watches?
- reocha 3y ago
  Gold plated rims for ebikes
- svnt 3y ago
  Electric palanquins.
FredPret 3y ago
[flagged]
- cedws 3y ago
  Didn't say anything about nobody being allowed cars.
  - FredPret 3y ago
    Totally, it’s only the cars you don‘t like that are to be banned.

tfrutuoso 3y ago

That's very elitist. Not everyone lives in large cities with whole mass transit systems or works the usual 9-5. Even in large urban areas it's tricky to get around past a certain time. I remember working unexpected shifts and later staring at closed metro stations, having to walk in the rain to get home. No thanks. Also, some people like cars. Deal with it, i'm not ditching for an e-bike or whatever. An electric motorcycle actually sounds nice though, if not for the battery weight.

CrispyKerosene 3y ago
It sucks, but it doesn't have to be that way. Even small towns can be sufficiently served by viable public transit options. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztpcWUqVpIg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztpcWUqVpIg
estebank 3y ago
You've identified a problem: public transport in some places sucks. But then veered away from the obvious solution: invest in it to make it not suck.
- zzzeek 3y ago
  throwing money at urban problems does not necessarily have a great track record, and NYCTA has had lots of issues with corruption when they do have money to spend. Id be pretty skeptical that giving them a lot of money would mean you can hop on a train in 5 minutes at 2 am, it wouldnt even be cost effective to run that many trains at odd hours. Cars are terrific for this use case, however. NYC cops have like a billion dollar budget and while they are great at protecting businesses in wealthy areas they are not very popular in lower income areas as they are both blase and overly brutal at the same time, their huge budget not having helped that aspect very much.
  - estebank 3y ago
    Somehow the argument against more money for infrastructure is never levied against freeway expansions.

1234letshaveatw 3y ago

Extremist nonsense. Why not restrict access to electronics, heating and cooling and lighting in the developing world? Meanwhile, here on earth, there are and will be micro EVs, trucks and busses and material advancements for batteries and recycling. Just take a look at the chinese market, there are many affordable options for the everyman. Also, if you don't think self driving cars will solve any problems you haven't driven anything with level 2/3 cruise control. Transport modernization in the developing world will be analogous to mobile phone proliferation in the developing world (in place of having a POTS), it doesn't have to mirror Norway

cornholio 3y ago

There is a little something that's missing from the analysis above: what people actually want. And what many people want, across many cultures once they reach a certain level of wealth, is the suburban home: low density living in isolated housing units set in a park like environment with ample greenery. Just look at almost any billionaire's mansion and you will see this pattern which becomes an aspiration for the middle class. Most people, given enough wealth, desire and choose the McMansion. This choice, replicated across millions of families, has massive implications: urban sprawl and low density make transit unworkable, shops need large catchment areas that can't no longer be reached on foot or bike, and it all devolves into car dependency. These communities will need point to point transport for the foreseeable future. So you either double down and hand-wave reality away "no, we'll just build high density housing along transit corridors", or you accept that people won't magically do what you think is right, and find real solutions. Electrifying cars is the low effort solution, but we could imagine making point to point transport more like public transit, for example, a Boring company Loop- type system where pods exit the tunnels and complete the last mile on the street level, of where self-driving taxis get you to a multi-modal terminal where you can catch a traditional train for the city center.

Moldoteck 3y ago
It's possible to have both: bike stations near train stations. Ppl from suburbs/low density areas go with bike to train station, and to their destination with the train. You may say ppl don't want this and this may be true, it's about tradeoffs: do you optimise for medium-high density or for low. Nowadays us/canada&even some europe does for low density
brugidou 3y ago
There are plenty of dense cities around the world where I'm sure the owners of apartments in the (walkable) center would have enough money to buy a house/McMansion in a nice suburb. And some do. But plenty don't. And building dense walkable cities with nice public transportation works very well and does not make these cities less attractive as far as I can tell.
marssaxman 3y ago
If that were true, you'd expect suburban houses to be more expensive than those in the city, but in reality it is generally the opposite. Here in Seattle, we watch the urban population grow in lockstep with the availability of new housing, year after year, while the cost of that housing continues to rise - much faster than the general rate of inflation. Simple economics suggests that city life must be very desirable, and that the urban population would be growing even faster if more housing were being built: therefore, some fraction of those people who end up in the suburbs are moving there not because it is their preference, but because wealthier people have outbid them for the more desirable city life. This is what people mean when they complain about gentrification. You cannot be sure Americans actually want to live in suburbs when that is all that most of them have to choose from, and that is the case because American zoning codes adopted in the mid 20th century made it difficult to build much of anything else. Car dependency was created, by law; do not mistake it for revealed preference.

ravenstine 3y ago

> We cannot reproduce the rates of rich world car ownership in the developing world without mass catastrophe That's incredible! Now show us some evidence.

Moldoteck 3y ago
Evidence like total cost of car infra vs taxes that ppl pay? Evidence that low density areas are subsidized by high density? All this info is freely available online. Difference is US can afford to be in debt, other countries - not so much
- ravenstine 3y ago
  Those may be serious problems, but nothing about that says that "mass catastrophe" necessarily follows. Language like that is implying something approaching apocalyptic. > All this info is freely available online. Given that the internet is full of conflicting information, and that you seem to know far more about this issue than I do, perhaps you could share a link to some of this information from a source you find credible? I would like to trust you over whatever is at the top of search engine results.
  - camgunz 3y ago
    I don't have a source. I just think that the habitat loss from roads/parking lots is massive, pavement changes watersheds, tires cause massive pollution, rubber farms and plants are disgusting, iron ore mines are disgusting, rare earth mineral mines are disgusting, the money we'd spend on building/buying/maintaining cars and their infrastructure is an unimaginable blunder (literally trillions), waste cars are a disaster. Like if something came from space and forced this on us it would be a total catastrophe. Us choosing it doesn't change that fact.
  - Moldoteck 3y ago
    The guy in this thread provided a link to strongtowns, there are other sources too, but I suggest starting with it since they cover most of what I'we written. For me, mass catastrophe is not just referring to economic side(imo failing to maintain car infra bc it costs too much at some point bc of low density of population & high wear of the roads is pretty bad) but also the time lost on travel compounded over years for all ppl bc of the spread, the isolation of the ppl from each other, limited mobility options for old ppl or ppl with disabilities, higher pollution (even if we replace all cars with electro, it doesn't solve pollution fully, bc of tire wear particles, tonns of asphalt that should be renewed bc of many cars, etc...). When added all together, the image is not looking good. Us can 'afford' this bc of usd/dollar, loans and their economic position globally(when I write afford I mean they can afford to ignore the problem, at least for some time) but for other countries it may result in an economic suicide

concordDance 3y ago

> The only problem that self-driving cars will ever solve is where to put VC money in a zero interest rate world. We've had freight trains and mass transit for centuries. They solve stress from a 30 minute daily commute. Public transport is never door to door and there are always changeovers and cancellations, while self driving cars on demand can be door to door and is far less dependant on whether there's a labour dispute or leaves on the tracks. They save thousands of hours per person over a working life. (Also, before you comment: remote work doesn't suit everyone or every job and being able to work in a job that doesn't have to be within a few miles of your home and your partner's job is a huge flexibility, efficiency and career boost)

gemstones 3y ago
In my walkable neighborhood you know how this problem is solved? The same way it was solved for centuries, high foot traffic incentivized a small grocer to pop up within walking distance. People in the neighborhood generally take jobs in the neighborhood, because there is high foot traffic, so there are jobs. Even doctors and nurses can get in on that, because it’s dense enough that a hospital is easy walking or biking distance, and their jobs are 100% not remote-friendly.
- concordDance 3y ago
  Let's say I work in reinsurance. How many reinsurance companies do you think are within walking distance? It's an odd fact of life that as countries get more developed the people in them more heavily specialise. This is one of the reasons cities have much higher wealth production per capita than towns. If everyone is very unspecialized (e.g. "general practitioner" rather than "expert in non-hodgkins limphomas") then walking and biking could work okay, there should be a couple of jobs in range (having alternative employment options is vital for healthy employee-employer relations). But that's just not how an advanced global economy works.
  - david-gpu 3y ago
    Somehow most developed countries around the world have figured out how to design cities around walking, public transit and cycling, but it's an insurmountable problem in the US? It's not magic, folks, just look at how it is done elsewhere. Yes, that includes places with "real winters".

deleted 3y ago

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freeopinion 3y ago

Transportation spans a huge spectrum. From walking to hoverboards to bicycles, e-bikes, motorcycles, cars, trucks, semis, trains, planes, cargo ships, etc. Gasoline/diesel vs electricity is orthogonal to most of that. So is "self-driving". It is great to have progress in batteries and charging. It is great to have progress in bicycle wheels and in snowmobile treads. It's great to have advances in cheaper rail beds and rotary masts. It would be amazing if we had serious innovation on creating safer separation of transportation modes that promoted more progress on multiple axes simultaneously.

lost_tourist 3y ago

1st point will never happen in democracies 2nd point is also debatable in western democracies. What you proscribe is only possible (currently) in dictatorships. It may be possible in 20 years after many more weather and climate disasters

IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago

If you live in a suburban house, with a yard, and drive a car, its likely poster is part of the problem. Its easy to externalize blame and point fingers to something/someone else, when the reality is that people need to look inward. The uncomfortable truth is these macro policy desires, are very much a case of "Do as I say, not as I do" I speak this as someone that does not own a car, or have a yard, and drive a moped everywhere. Yet, I don't want to restrict anyone in the future from owning a car (gas, if cost is an issue for the poor), or living in the suburbs.

camgunz 3y ago
I don't think you're wrong per se, but I hesitate to say that the problems we have are that everyone individually but also en masse decided to move to the suburbs and also drive big honkin' cars everywhere, all the time. I think it's more likely there were systems and incentives (both economic and cultural) that led to this. I think this is actually good news, because it means we can fix this with some (slow) cultural shifts and (less slow, hopefully) policy changes. If we really had to directly convince 10,000,000s of people to move into townhomes we'd have no hope. (FWIW I've lived in lots of places, tiny apartments, townhomes, big apartments, single rooms, mcmansions, old houses. I've been lucky enough to more or less choose them--most people live wherever they can--and for the last ~10 years have chosen tiny apartment. I like the idea of living small, they're a lot more maintainable, cheaper, and I used to move a lot so having a ceiling on the amount of stuff I could have was real attractive)
Arelius 3y ago
Isn't it a bit audacious to assume the parent lives in a suburban home with a yard and drives a car? Many people don't. And it'd often a choice of values and principles. Of which the parent shared theirs.
KennyBlanken 3y ago
I have a suburban/rural house, with a yard, and drive a car. I also put over 2000 miles a year on an ebike, which equates to about 30kWhr of electricity. That e-bike is designed to take a substantial amount of cargo, or two kids. I can get to the post office, polling place, local deli, library, and a bar in about 5 minutes. The supermarket, pharmacy, pizza shops, restaurant, bank, hardware store etc in 15 minutes. A friend I visit regularly is 15 miles away which I consistently do in under 40 minutes versus about 25-30 in the car, even though the route I take to avoid a single-lane undivided highway is longer. Yes, a lot of rural/suburban neighborhoods are isolated by wildly unsafe roads between them and services. But in many, it's very easy to get to many of the places you need to go, via bicycle.

bluejekyll 3y ago

> The only way that's even remotely possible is to heavily subsidize EVs (probably honestly just providing free swaps) I think that is in contradiction to your initial statement, > building the future around cars of any kind is completely unsustainable. We cannot reproduce the rates of rich world car ownership in the developing world without mass catastrophe… Subsidizing car ownership will only make these goals harder to attain. Swapping the car out for free for an EV bike, that would be great. Subsidizing only the people who need a car, ok (ambulatory issues, etc), but we should not subsidize car ownership in general. The other part of this that I’m becoming more aware of as it’s researched more, is that the Air Quality in an area is actually more effected by dust and particulate matter from tires, brakes, and roadways than greenhouse gases (this is different from Climate impacting Greenhouse gas effects). What this means is that EV cars won’t fix the Air Quality of an area, but EV bikes definitely would. In short, I agree with your initial statement, but it’s how we get there that needs some adjustment. Leverage more transit and bikes as solutions rather than subsidizing car ownership.

InSteady 3y ago
>Air Quality Adding to this, it also appears that even low levels of PM 2.5 air pollution has negative impacts on health over a long timeframe (including increased risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, death, and more). WHO is now recommending average annual exposure targets should be set 2-3 times lower than current EPA levels and a whopping 5 times lower than EU standards. Serious health complications occur above this level. [1] [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10097564/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10097564/
camgunz 3y ago
Yeah, maybe. I just think politically a car buyback program will be somehow less popular than a gun buyback program, and outlawing ICEs even less so.

xkekjrktllss 3y ago

> building the future around cars of any kind is completely unsustainable But it's potentially profitable in our highly financialized economy, and nothing else is. > If we're serious about meeting the 2030 "halve our emissions" and 2050 "zero our emissions" goals, EVs will not get there Their purpose is merely to rescue the coastal urban California real estate prices by displacing the pollution to a less wealthy geographical area. The rest is just marketing. > I get that whole economies are built around producing/maintaining cars and related infra, but it was wildly disastrous. Wrong. Whole economies are built around profit and that is what's disasterous. > We're well into sunk cost fallacy territory here, like, on a species level. You're wrong again to think we had a choice. Capitalism pits everyone against each other in ruthless pursuits of profit for the sake of survival and life meaning. It's more than economic gridlock; it's social gridlock.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> only problem that self-driving cars will ever solve is where to put VC money in a zero interest rate world. We've had freight trains and mass transit for centuries. Wouldn’t write these off so quickly. I know two people who ditched their cars in Phoenix, one of whom went car free, because of Waymo. (By analogy: without cabs and Ubers, many more New Yorkers would have a car parked in an outer borough.)

volkl48 3y ago
I will point out that getting around by cab is only really "solving" the problem of urban car storage and not....any other issues with cars in urban environments, like traffic or the portion of public space devoted to car travel lanes. And in some cases they may actually make traffic worse with increased circling behaviors in the highest-demand (and often, most congested) parts of the city.

geraldwhen 3y ago

My work requires me to come to office on certain days. Not only are there no sidewalks to the office, the roads are egregiously unsafe even in a car. Even if a moped or bike were feasible, there’s nowhere to live within any reasonable distance. The office is isolated on the big acreage it purchased. If I could, I would bike a half hour to work, easily. I can’t. It’s just not safe. Everything is built for big, fast cars.

ahoy 3y ago
It's an incredible crime that basically no american can live within 5 miles of their work. Car companies ad the government that capitulated to them fucked us so bad.
- geraldwhen 3y ago
  I’m not much farther, but there are no pedestrian routes to get there, just highways or roads with no shoulder at 55mph.

patagonia 3y ago

To be completely explicit, you're telling anyone with any need or desire to pull a trailer or go off publicly planned and constructed roadways that their needs or desires are not even on the table for discussion. I don't believe it is in fact necessary to eliminate cars as a primary mode of transportation in the future in order to meet climate goals. But, even if it was, the argument just will not fly with many many many people. I could easily counter with the argument that we should keep cars but eliminate all air and boat transportation (and recreation) and eliminate the future production of computers. The path forward will not look like either of these proposals.

Gud 3y ago
You don’t need to own a car to do this. The simple fact is, public transport in most places sucks. I’ve moved to Zürich, and there is no way I’ll drive a car willingly again. Taking the tram everywhere is extremely liberating.
- patagonia 3y ago
  I lived in New York City for 5 years. I loved it. I didn't own a car. I took the subway, cabs, trains, and planes everywhere. But, I didn't go camping or own a boat. I live in South Carolina now where I tow my catamaran to different regattas or just to the beach for fun. I go camping with an amount of gear that would be completely unreasonable to take on a train. Public transportation does not allow for the same activities as a car or truck. That's just obviously true. I'd be happy to give up my car. I would not give up sailing or the type of camping I do. People that hunt, should they give up hunting because they can't transport their game? How are contractors going to get equipment to the worksite? Cars/trucks/vehicles are not just for moving people.
  - nradov 3y ago
    Well obviously middle class people shouldn't be allowed to go sailing if that conflicts with urban planning and climate justice goals. Such activities should be restricted to the elites who can afford to keep their private yachts moored in the local marina. All for the greater good.

CalRobert 3y ago

I think the hardest thing to get across is that _LIFE IS BETTER_ this way. Having 2,000 kgs of metal hurtling by at 80 kph half a meter from your six your old's head while you walk to school SUCKS. It's horrible. But hopping with my 4 year old in the cargo bike and my 6 year old on her own bike is sheer, utter, bliss. Little kids ringing their bells and chatting with new friends on the way to school is a joy that I feel privileged to be able to experience with them. And when you don't surround every building with 3 acres of parking, everything is closer together. It's so much closer together that, for the most part, you don't even need to drive for much. I didn't even _want_ to move to the Netherlands. I wanted to live somewhere I could be car-free and feel safe with my kids biking to school. It's ludicrous that cars have utterly conquered the entire damn planet, and all humans have is a desperate rearguard action in a tiny country largely below sea level. And even here, there's more cars than I'd like.

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gloryjulio 3y ago
It indeed is. I don't even need to drive most of the time when living inside the city. The bike serves most of the needs and it's vastly cheaper.
lapetitejort 3y ago
This morning a combination of sun in my eyes, a blind spot, and a dewy morning almost led me to run over two people legally crossing the street. My significant other had to scream at me to stop. I could have killed two people. All I was trying to do was get coffee. I need to get rid of this death machine fast.
- camgunz 3y ago
  I bumped a cyclist while I was edging out into a blind intersection (one of those that gets parked up all alongside it) because I was looking one way and he raced in front of me from the other. Like, neither of us really did anything wrong, but he was nearly severely injured and I nearly went to prison. Cars are dumb.

sgregnt 3y ago

I like my lifestyle around car, and driving. I lived in Europe without car and woth car in US. Much better in US. And I suspect the world can support 1000× cars easily.

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admax88qqq 3y ago

> start making it way way more easier to get by w/o a car. How exactly could do this by 2030/2050? So much of the existing infrastructure is built at a low density with the expectation of having a car to get around. What do we have to do? Rebuild all our cities at Japan level densities so we can have reasonable tranit options? Ban living in those cities and force everyone to move to a few high density cities? Rebuild all our highways/roads with enough transit infrastructure and staff to let people travel their existing routes without a car? "Make it way way more easier to get by w/o a car" sounds less feasible to me than scaling up EVs.

ryukafalz 3y ago
Starting with the areas that already have sufficient density but don't have safe bike infrastructure: build a network of safe bike infrastructure. The area I live in is like this. Philly and its surrounding suburbs are absolutely already dense enough to make cycling a practical way to get around, but it's not particularly safe or pleasant to do so. So there's a lot of low-hanging fruit in places that are already pretty dense. But in addition to that, upzone broadly and remove parking minimums. I think there's a good chance that leads to higher densities pretty quickly in areas with high demand.

akira2501 3y ago

> I've said it before and I'll say it again To the same effect. Perhaps a real study on this issue would be more elucidating? > Banning gas/diesel cars gets there You've effectively ended farming and rural life. > is to heavily subsidize EVs The only reason you have to subsidize them is because they are not adequate replacements for ICE cars. Perhaps if they just made EVs better, people would _want_ them, and they wouldn't be _forced_ into buying them. > The only problem that self-driving cars will ever solve is where to put VC money in a zero interest rate world. People value their own time. Perhaps you don't, but it should rightfully be part of this equation. > I get that whole economies are built around producing/maintaining cars and related infra Yea.. because they are a good utility and serve a real purpose. We didn't decide to build cars, the market demanded them. It's always amazing to me that people will "say it over and over again" to no effect, yet walk past the fact that basic MPG fuel economy hasn't improved in 30 years. > like, on a species level. Or, take any account of exactly how bunker fuel oil shipping consumes.

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hedora 3y ago

I think you need to check your math. There are 14 times more of these electric mopeds, etc than cars, but they only have 4x more impact than the EVs. So one EV displaces about 3.5x more carbon emissions than the mopeds. To make the 2030 halve our emissions deadline, and 2050 net zero deadline with just little city vehicles, we’ll need to abandon the suburbs, exurbs and rural buildings and infrastructure that we already have, and replace it without producing any additional emissions. Also, in the US, most cities that experienced significant growth after ~ 1950 need to have their new parts razed and rebuilt to accommodate public transit routes and add walkable amenities. None of that can possibly happen at sufficient scale in the next 7 years, and it certainly would have massive environmental impact if it did. Alternatively, we could switch all cars to EV’s, use existing construction and infrastructure, and get a > 75% reduction in transportation carbon, even without cleaning up the power grid. In reality, we are already cleaning up the grid, and time of use subsidies are doing a good job of moving time-shiftable demand to high-production times, when the grid is cleaner. EVs are currently one of the biggest, easy to time shift loads. So, we can have a 90% solution to transportation carbon, or go for a 97.5% improvement (rounding the 3.5x improvement moving to mopeds would give up to 4x), but then emit way more carbon than total transportation emissions while we rebuild an unprecedented number of cities all at once. I’m all for public transit, and think all new urban / suburban housing should be built along high capacity transit corridors, but doing that isn’t going to solve global warming in time.

fulafel 3y ago
> I think you need to check your math. There are 14 times more of these electric mopeds, etc than cars, but they only have 4x more impact than the EVs. So one EV displaces about 3.5x more carbon emissions than the mopeds. This is not the case. The cited 4x in oil demand is just a part of the main problem (CO2 emissions). E-car carbon emissions over the lifecycle are still ~50% of fossil fuel cars, due to their large manufacturing co2 footprint and impact of the 10-100x higher electricity usage to power them. The battery sizes body masses are O(100x) bigger than e-bikes and energy usage per km O(10x) bigger.
Enginerrrd 3y ago
Also I'd just like to add: everyone forgets that not everyone lives near an urban center. It'd be fine to get rid of 90-95% of the internal combustion cars/trucks and then move on to the next biggest target. We don't need to jump to 100% on everything.

kazinator 3y ago

You have to solve housing. Nobody wants to commute 50 miles by electric scooter.

kazinator 3y ago

You have to solve housing and/or transportation. Nobody wants to commute 50 miles by electric scooter; if that's their only viable option other than a car, car it will be.

m463 3y ago

I think you are only telling the gloomy side of the story. I think the answer might be nice if there's a better story. Maybe not so much living without and riding bicycles and walking, but maybe more like: - telecommuting - with government overriding 3-days-in-office ceo stuff - goods delivery instead of shopping, maybe permits/regulations/etc to prevent 1000 delivery vehicles - car rental, or fractional ownership, or something for exceptions - rezoning/rebuilding so neighborhoods have some services within a short distance.

alberth 3y ago

Singapore One approach is to replicate Singapore massive taxation on vehicles, which disincentivizes ownership. To own a vehicle in Singapore, it costs ~2.5x the normal cost due to taxes. As such, it has one of the highest uses of public transit, bicycles and walking in the world.

b0ner_t0ner 3y ago
Higher tax is not a must, one can have amazing public transportation infrastructure like in Tokyo or Hong Kong, but most US cities can't do that with all the roads and highways in place.

black_13 3y ago

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pharmakom 3y ago

It doesn’t work in the developed world either. We all hate pollution, sitting in traffic, lack of green space, obesity, lack of childhood autonomy … and yet society seems incapable of coordinating on solving it. Well, except for the Netherlands.

camgunz 3y ago
Most of Europe is small, walkable cities. There are of course still highways and city roads, but most things here function as you're describing. Come on over, the water's warm ;)

up2isomorphism 3y ago

Build efficient and affordable public transportation first, and without worrying about getting pushed onto the tracks. Japanese never banned cars, and people are predominantly using public transport. Switzerland never banned cars, and it pollutes far less than US. Also they accomplished that without letting >30mph e-bikers blasting through sidewalks. It is sad a lot of western progressive totally forget about how western civilization was built. And resorting to “macro “ control strategies that never really worked.

ThinkBeat 3y ago

- If we're serious about meeting the 2030 "halve our emissions "We¹" are not serious about it. Biden talks pretty but has increased the production of fossil fuels, beyond what even Trump did and we are now exporting more LNG than any other country. (That changes, we are at the top, the nr 1 spot might change between competitors now and again) Yet we are all so happy with Biden cause he -says- the right words. Same with Norway. So many people saying the right things at the right places with the right photo ops. Yet we are not producing more fossile fuels than ever before. The state has decided that we will increase production until 2026, and -then- we will really cut back. Yeah right. Then we saw last winter many countries opening up coal powerplants again to have enough energy. You cannot be serious about 2030 and the climate in general, when you restart that kind of power plant. ¹ Those who run countries and have been elected to do so.