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Problem 1: This article is a giant anti-car rant with a few points of rational debate baked in that might help public policy. It's no more objectively helpful t
by exue 14y ago
Problem 1: This article is a giant anti-car rant with a few points of rational debate baked in that might help public policy. It's no more objectively helpful than reading a spiel from BimmerForums or ClubWRX on why they love their 300hp sports cars and would never give them up to be herded in a big, crowded, smelly bus.
Problem 2: Cars are currently the best solution to the problems we have. That's why they are #1 in the US. Not because they are horrible inventions, not because there is some conspiracy to keep them in their cars (Americans CHOOSE to live in suburbs with large lawns and lots of open space, since not everyone lives in a big city with subway systems and whatnot). Building lots of parking lots is still cheaper than figuring a way to shuttle people around in rural areas. America is big, land is cheap.
America doesn't look like Manhattan, NYC everywhere. For these people, cars are the best solution. And the next stage is not going to be a jetpack. It's going to be a self-driving car. The fact that average people put up with all the problems and headaches of cars that only car enthusiasts love (maintenance, repairs, buying, etc.) shows us that there are a LOT of advantages from cars that we need to match with new forms of technology. My take is: Improve cars, rather than trying to destroy them. Because 100 years of innovation of automobiles aren't for nothing.
My take: The near future is efficient hybrids (2025), electric or fuel-cell cars (2035), then self-driving cars (2060). People will continue to talk about completely changing the infrastructure of the US, having everyone take buses and subways to work, but cars will continue to be over 75% of commute options for the forseeable future. Why?
The problem with all public transport technologies right now is it doesn't solve the density problem. The majority of new population in the US is growing not in really dense cities, but in medium dense suburbs. Everyone talks about moving people into "livable, healthy, walkable cities", yet Americans largely choose to migrate out of those ciites into new suburbs. I wonder why. Maybe they don't like the crowds, the crime, etc. It's human nature.
Problem 3: Finally, here are some things that cars have solved that are unresolved problems in other forms of transport:
Freedom of movement. Go wherever you want, whenever you want, with no one telling you what to do.
Speed. Choose a random American's home and a random American's office. Driving by car, even in traffic, probably beats all other modes in terms of speed. That's why even in the Bay Area at most 20% of commuters go by public transport where over 70% drive.
Efficiency. Cars are actually quite efficient and getting more so, especially with hybrid technology. The average car beats the average city bus in terms of energy efficiency. And we are quite likely to get 50+MPG Cars and electric cars in the near future.
http://www.templetons.com/brad/transit-myth.html http://www.templetons.com/brad/transit-myth.html
Price. Compared to jet packs or flying cars...
- ken 14y ago> Cars are currently the best solution to the problems we have. That's why they are #1 in the US. Granted -- so long as you take the legislative and tax situation into account. That's part of the "problem" to which cars are currently the best solution for most people, but it's not unchangeable. Or from a different perspective, you could say: the "problem" is that people want to live in places (like suburbs) to which there is no great transportation solution yet, so part of the "solution" has to include a tax system that hides the true cost of the most acceptable solution. Would cars still be so appealing if the true costs were not hidden? People seem to complain a lot about $4+/gal gasoline, but the tax on it doesn't come close to covering the maintenance needs of the roads they drive on. Couldn't almost any technology be the "best", given the right financial incentive? I agree that for the next 10 years, hybrid electric cars are the solid bet. They have the ear of the lawmakers, it seems, and so not only are they 'cool', but they've got massive tax incentives helping them. I'm completely in favor of more efficient cars, of course, but it does seem odd to offer so many benefits based not on efficiency, but on one particular technology used to achieve efficiency.
- exue 14y agohttp://www.bts.gov/publications/federal_subsidies_to_passenger_transportation/pdf/entire.pdf http://www.bts.gov/publications/federal_subsidies_to_passeng... Roads definitely have subsidies, but according to the document above, much less than urban transit or rail - if people pay the full costs of cars, they should pay the full costs of transit (not your typical $1.50 bus fare). In urban areas like the Bay Area or LA County, car trips are about 80% of commute trips, with transit at 10-15% but local/state transit funding is WAY above 10-15%, with a lot of gas taxes being funneled to transit projects. I believe that first off, we are 'paying' the true costs of cars, as people have voted for a government that pays for highways through income income taxes as well as gas taxes. You could argue the same way about incentives for public vs. private transportation - people get advantages for buying hybrid cars the same way the public transport is heavily pushed onto cities. I don't think the solution to suburbs is to make them all into cities, or that the solution to cars as they are today is to replace them with public transport - cars have succeeded in capturing a huge % of marketshare so we should learn from their success and improve private transportation rather than trying to change human nature.