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Pushing up the cost of cars is good. They're damaging to the environment, people, and our infrastructure. The minimum we can be doing right now is to lower the

Pushing up the cost of cars is good. They're damaging to the environment, people, and our infrastructure. The minimum we can be doing right now is to lower the safety risk and emissions of them.

grobbyy 2y ago
No. It's not. Pushing down car ownership might be good, but not based on wealth. Priority should go to elderly, people with disabilities, people with kids, etc. Even so, the goal shouldn't be fewer cars but less miles driven. The kind of antagonistic approach you prescribe rarely leads to good policy.
- spankalee 2y ago
  Cars are massively subsidized, and requiring that they be safer reduces some of their externalities a bit, raising their cost and lowering that subsidy. That's a good thing.
nomel 2y ago
Where I am, my car commute is 30 minutes. If I moved closer, shaving it to 10 minutes, my housing costs double. If I get down to 5, housing costs are about 4x. If I use public transport now, the travel time is 2 hours. To keep my public transport to 30 minutes, I have to ~2x my housing costs. I think, realistically, people will just end up commuting further, to offset the cost, since that is the best financial, and time, choice.
- spankalee 2y ago
  We should also build more housing!
  - nomel 2y ago
    That's another significant problem. Any dense housing built near the city is, necessarily, corporate built, due to initial costs. The ability to own these units is disappearing [1], with much more profit being found by renting. This means that moving near a city is, almost always, a 100% loss, where you burn your housing cost every month, rather than building equity with something you can own some commute away. This adds significantly more cost to the short commute, if you plan on living in the same place for a while. [1] https://www.ppic.org/blog/multi-unit-housing-is-becoming-more-common-but-has-low-homeownership-rates/ https://www.ppic.org/blog/multi-unit-housing-is-becoming-mor...
    - pjc50 2y ago
      > where you burn your housing cost every month As opposed to travel cost? (yes, it's a really stupid situation that renting a house is far more expensive than renting some money for thirty years)
      - nomel 2y ago
        My cheap gas car gets 40mpg on the freeway. With our roughly $5.30/gallon cost here, a 40 mile one-way commute is around $300/month. That's < 1/10th the housing cost for living near work. If free electric charging is available where you work, you can save even more by buying a low range, used, electric that nobody wants. I picked one up for $8k. The savings will pay it off in a few more years.
lamontcg 2y ago
The flip side is that its a tax on poorer people who need a vehicle to work. If we had walkable cities with good public transportation and people had actual options it'd be different. There's an intersection of anti-car and social justice concerns where you have to ask where the financial burden is hitting.

Pushing up the cost of cars is good. They're damaging to the environment, people, and our infrastructure. The minimum we can be doing right now is to lower the safety risk and emissions of them.

grobbyy 2y ago

No. It's not. Pushing down car ownership might be good, but not based on wealth. Priority should go to elderly, people with disabilities, people with kids, etc. Even so, the goal shouldn't be fewer cars but less miles driven. The kind of antagonistic approach you prescribe rarely leads to good policy.

spankalee 2y ago
Cars are massively subsidized, and requiring that they be safer reduces some of their externalities a bit, raising their cost and lowering that subsidy. That's a good thing.

nomel 2y ago

Where I am, my car commute is 30 minutes. If I moved closer, shaving it to 10 minutes, my housing costs double. If I get down to 5, housing costs are about 4x. If I use public transport now, the travel time is 2 hours. To keep my public transport to 30 minutes, I have to ~2x my housing costs. I think, realistically, people will just end up commuting further, to offset the cost, since that is the best financial, and time, choice.

spankalee 2y ago
We should also build more housing!
- nomel 2y ago
  That's another significant problem. Any dense housing built near the city is, necessarily, corporate built, due to initial costs. The ability to own these units is disappearing [1], with much more profit being found by renting. This means that moving near a city is, almost always, a 100% loss, where you burn your housing cost every month, rather than building equity with something you can own some commute away. This adds significantly more cost to the short commute, if you plan on living in the same place for a while. [1] https://www.ppic.org/blog/multi-unit-housing-is-becoming-more-common-but-has-low-homeownership-rates/ https://www.ppic.org/blog/multi-unit-housing-is-becoming-mor...
  - pjc50 2y ago
    > where you burn your housing cost every month As opposed to travel cost? (yes, it's a really stupid situation that renting a house is far more expensive than renting some money for thirty years)
    - nomel 2y ago
      My cheap gas car gets 40mpg on the freeway. With our roughly $5.30/gallon cost here, a 40 mile one-way commute is around $300/month. That's < 1/10th the housing cost for living near work. If free electric charging is available where you work, you can save even more by buying a low range, used, electric that nobody wants. I picked one up for $8k. The savings will pay it off in a few more years.

lamontcg 2y ago

The flip side is that its a tax on poorer people who need a vehicle to work. If we had walkable cities with good public transportation and people had actual options it'd be different. There's an intersection of anti-car and social justice concerns where you have to ask where the financial burden is hitting.