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When it comes to transit I think the lol make driving sucky so people will support mass transit is inane because of the backlash potential. Much better to get a

When it comes to transit I think the lol make driving sucky so people will support mass transit is inane because of the backlash potential. Much better to get ahead of the hose than always be trying to grab it's ass. You're not going to get boomers and GenX to take the bus. You probably could get younger generations to do that especially if there are options. Really there should be a high speed rail along the front range and subways in places like Denver. And zoning that prioritizes development that utilized that.

Gigachad 2y ago
If boomers want to continue driving, they can. Just make them pay for what they use. Work out the real market value for the space and charge for it.
- sien 2y ago
  Yep. The same should be done for public transport. In the US Farebox Recovery Ratios of 20% or less are common. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio#United_... Only 58% of fuel tax in Australia is spent on any kind of transport including rail. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-21/fuel-excise-not-being-spent-on-roads-amid-calls-to-cut-tax/100920658 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-21/fuel-excise-not-being... Australians drive a similar amount to the US. From https://www.economist.com/europe/2021/11/13/how-trains-could-replace-planes-in-europe https://www.economist.com/europe/2021/11/13/how-trains-could... Yet only 8% of the distance travelled by land in the EU is by rail. Even in the most train-happy countries, Austria and the Netherlands, the figures are 13% and 11%. In those countries, more than 75% of land travel is done by car. So even in Europe and Australia where cars more than pay for their costs people still drive a lot. This is with all the effort put in to public transport in Europe.
  - Jensson 2y ago
    You can see about half of trips are by car in for example Germany: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1309333/germany-modal-split-of-passenger-transport/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1309333/germany-modal-sp... Public transit isn't all, just being denser so that biking and walking is more viable is also a big part to why European cities aren't concrete wastelands full of parking and roads. The normal way to go and buy groceries is to walk not drive.
  - bee_rider 2y ago
    These transport options—more notably for cars, but everything else too—are still heavily subsidized in the sense that we’re allowing them to ignore the cost of cleaning up after them, or the cost of climate change (if they aren’t cleaned up after). If we stop that theft from everybody’s grandkids, the economics might get some people to switch over to public transit at least. But it is really easy to steal from these people, they are tiny babies or not even born yet, they can’t vote. Like stealing candy from a baby, except the candy is their planet’s ecosystem. Sucks to be them, I guess.
  - ksplicer 2y ago
    How are you coming to the conclusion that cars are paying their fair share of costs? I'm not familiar with Australian politics at all, but a quick look found that local governments pay most of road maintenance, not the fuel excise tax[1]. Another hidden cost of cars is that they decrease density of cities and suburbs, which causes all other infrastructure to also get more expensive (sewage, gas, power, etc). [1] https://alga.com.au/policy-centre/roads-and-infrastructure/roads-funding https://alga.com.au/policy-centre/roads-and-infrastructure/r...
  - epolanski 2y ago
    The dutch use bikes a lot. Like really a lot.
    - throwaway2037 2y ago
      Most cities in the Nordics as well as Japan. I am always amazed at the crazy weather that people will ride through in Sweden and Finland!
  - CalRobert 2y ago
    Similarly, all roads should be tolled.
    - throwaway2037 2y ago
      Interesting point. Why don't you think this is true in more highly developed countries? Two example come to mind: The "seal" you must buy in Suisse, and most high speed roads in Japan are rolled.
  - bluecalm 2y ago
    Cars don't pay for their costs and it's not close. Fuel tax doesn't even cover a small fraction of infrastructure cost in most European countries. Building roads is heavily subsidized from federal budgets, land given for free, accident costs covered by public money etc. etc.
- Gibbon1 2y ago
  My response to that sort of argument is yes indeed you are 100% correct in theory and 100% wrong in practice. It's the result of framing everything as a moral argument and shooting for perfection. That never ends well. You're better off depending on age and grim reaper to get old people to stop driving and focus on habituating young people to just not.
sokoloff 2y ago
If you make the bus better than driving, people will take the bus. Ideally, you'd do that by improving the bus rather than accepting the current shitty bus situation and degrading driving to the point that it's even worse...
- HDThoreaun 2y ago
  I think to would be extremely difficult to make the bus better than driving for people that already have a car. The most obvious option is making parking expensive or hard to find but I think that would lead to new politicians before people really embrace the bus. Reality is that americans dont enjoy being in enclosed spaces with strangers, hard to overcome that.
  - tbrownaw 2y ago
    It shouldn't be that hard to make it better (for a decent fraction of people) for specific things, like say commuting or nightlife. It would be very hard to make it better for, say, picking up DIY supplies at the hardware store.
    - jusssi 2y ago
      The hardware store probably has a delivery service, because not everyone has a van or a pickup for those 2x4s. But if you DIY big stuff often enough for that to be a factor to consider, you're probably not the target group anyway. Just like people who need to drive 800 miles without a stop every other week aren't the target group for current EVs.
      - pclmulqdq 2y ago
        Is this a hypothetical future hardware store delivery service that enables a bus? No hardware store I have seen has a delivery service. I do a fair amount of gardening, and while most garden stores (not hardware stores, dedicated stores for landscaping and gardening) have the capability to deliver, it is always a very expensive service ($50-100 for a trip of less than 5 miles). Most cars can fit a few 8' 2x4s as well as several bags of bulk dirt, and what hardware stores often have is a cutting service that lets you make those 2x4s shorter for transit. None of those would fit on a bus.
TheCleric 2y ago
When I lived in Denver this GenXer gladly transitioned to light rail as it freed up an hour a day that I would have spent concentrating on driving on more relaxing things like reading. I miss it.
- cscurmudgeon 2y ago
  Respectfully, you should be arguing for more density so you don't even have to travel by rail that much. But any density is opposed strangely by the anti-car crowd due to (e.g., see SF local politics). 1. "It will ruin the character of our precious million year old city" 2. "Building more housing will magically cause existing people to move out the city" 3. "Developers will get rich. Can't ever let that happen. They should be in perpetual misery." If someone is advocating for anti-car policies but neutral or against density, they are holding inconsistent views.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - TheCleric 2y ago
    I’m in favor of both.
tomtheelder 2y ago
I think the argument is a little different. I’d say the best framing of it is that we have sacrificed every other method of transportation at the altar of personal cars. Building for cars is what has made every other option shitty. So it’s not so much that just make driving cars shitty for no reason as it is that you _have_ to make driving shitty if you want to unshittify walking/biking/transit.

Gigachad 2y ago

If boomers want to continue driving, they can. Just make them pay for what they use. Work out the real market value for the space and charge for it.

sien 2y ago
Yep. The same should be done for public transport. In the US Farebox Recovery Ratios of 20% or less are common. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio#United_... Only 58% of fuel tax in Australia is spent on any kind of transport including rail. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-21/fuel-excise-not-being-spent-on-roads-amid-calls-to-cut-tax/100920658 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-21/fuel-excise-not-being... Australians drive a similar amount to the US. From https://www.economist.com/europe/2021/11/13/how-trains-could-replace-planes-in-europe https://www.economist.com/europe/2021/11/13/how-trains-could... Yet only 8% of the distance travelled by land in the EU is by rail. Even in the most train-happy countries, Austria and the Netherlands, the figures are 13% and 11%. In those countries, more than 75% of land travel is done by car. So even in Europe and Australia where cars more than pay for their costs people still drive a lot. This is with all the effort put in to public transport in Europe.
- Jensson 2y ago
  You can see about half of trips are by car in for example Germany: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1309333/germany-modal-split-of-passenger-transport/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1309333/germany-modal-sp... Public transit isn't all, just being denser so that biking and walking is more viable is also a big part to why European cities aren't concrete wastelands full of parking and roads. The normal way to go and buy groceries is to walk not drive.
- bee_rider 2y ago
  These transport options—more notably for cars, but everything else too—are still heavily subsidized in the sense that we’re allowing them to ignore the cost of cleaning up after them, or the cost of climate change (if they aren’t cleaned up after). If we stop that theft from everybody’s grandkids, the economics might get some people to switch over to public transit at least. But it is really easy to steal from these people, they are tiny babies or not even born yet, they can’t vote. Like stealing candy from a baby, except the candy is their planet’s ecosystem. Sucks to be them, I guess.
- ksplicer 2y ago
  How are you coming to the conclusion that cars are paying their fair share of costs? I'm not familiar with Australian politics at all, but a quick look found that local governments pay most of road maintenance, not the fuel excise tax[1]. Another hidden cost of cars is that they decrease density of cities and suburbs, which causes all other infrastructure to also get more expensive (sewage, gas, power, etc). [1] https://alga.com.au/policy-centre/roads-and-infrastructure/roads-funding https://alga.com.au/policy-centre/roads-and-infrastructure/r...
- epolanski 2y ago
  The dutch use bikes a lot. Like really a lot.
  - throwaway2037 2y ago
    Most cities in the Nordics as well as Japan. I am always amazed at the crazy weather that people will ride through in Sweden and Finland!
- CalRobert 2y ago
  Similarly, all roads should be tolled.
  - throwaway2037 2y ago
    Interesting point. Why don't you think this is true in more highly developed countries? Two example come to mind: The "seal" you must buy in Suisse, and most high speed roads in Japan are rolled.
- bluecalm 2y ago
  Cars don't pay for their costs and it's not close. Fuel tax doesn't even cover a small fraction of infrastructure cost in most European countries. Building roads is heavily subsidized from federal budgets, land given for free, accident costs covered by public money etc. etc.
Gibbon1 2y ago
My response to that sort of argument is yes indeed you are 100% correct in theory and 100% wrong in practice. It's the result of framing everything as a moral argument and shooting for perfection. That never ends well. You're better off depending on age and grim reaper to get old people to stop driving and focus on habituating young people to just not.

sokoloff 2y ago

If you make the bus better than driving, people will take the bus. Ideally, you'd do that by improving the bus rather than accepting the current shitty bus situation and degrading driving to the point that it's even worse...

HDThoreaun 2y ago
I think to would be extremely difficult to make the bus better than driving for people that already have a car. The most obvious option is making parking expensive or hard to find but I think that would lead to new politicians before people really embrace the bus. Reality is that americans dont enjoy being in enclosed spaces with strangers, hard to overcome that.
- tbrownaw 2y ago
  It shouldn't be that hard to make it better (for a decent fraction of people) for specific things, like say commuting or nightlife. It would be very hard to make it better for, say, picking up DIY supplies at the hardware store.
  - jusssi 2y ago
    The hardware store probably has a delivery service, because not everyone has a van or a pickup for those 2x4s. But if you DIY big stuff often enough for that to be a factor to consider, you're probably not the target group anyway. Just like people who need to drive 800 miles without a stop every other week aren't the target group for current EVs.
    - pclmulqdq 2y ago
      Is this a hypothetical future hardware store delivery service that enables a bus? No hardware store I have seen has a delivery service. I do a fair amount of gardening, and while most garden stores (not hardware stores, dedicated stores for landscaping and gardening) have the capability to deliver, it is always a very expensive service ($50-100 for a trip of less than 5 miles). Most cars can fit a few 8' 2x4s as well as several bags of bulk dirt, and what hardware stores often have is a cutting service that lets you make those 2x4s shorter for transit. None of those would fit on a bus.

TheCleric 2y ago

When I lived in Denver this GenXer gladly transitioned to light rail as it freed up an hour a day that I would have spent concentrating on driving on more relaxing things like reading. I miss it.

cscurmudgeon 2y ago
Respectfully, you should be arguing for more density so you don't even have to travel by rail that much. But any density is opposed strangely by the anti-car crowd due to (e.g., see SF local politics). 1. "It will ruin the character of our precious million year old city" 2. "Building more housing will magically cause existing people to move out the city" 3. "Developers will get rich. Can't ever let that happen. They should be in perpetual misery." If someone is advocating for anti-car policies but neutral or against density, they are holding inconsistent views.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- TheCleric 2y ago
  I’m in favor of both.

tomtheelder 2y ago

I think the argument is a little different. I’d say the best framing of it is that we have sacrificed every other method of transportation at the altar of personal cars. Building for cars is what has made every other option shitty. So it’s not so much that just make driving cars shitty for no reason as it is that you _have_ to make driving shitty if you want to unshittify walking/biking/transit.