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"Driving to work" is hardly a "vote with your wallet" style consumer choice. Our housing, building, and transportation policies have been geared towards encoura

"Driving to work" is hardly a "vote with your wallet" style consumer choice. Our housing, building, and transportation policies have been geared towards encouraging car-dependence for nearly a century. In places with better public transit and bike lanes, people spontaneously choose to use those modes of transport. Just like with companies dumping as much plastic waste/CO2 as they can get away with, this is a policy problem, plain and simple. No amount of pro-environment metal straw campaigns will solve it. At best environmentally-conscious messaging could encourage changes in voting behavior which influence policy. At worst people could be convinced that they're "doing their part" and fail to consider systemic changes.

hmottestad 2y ago
Regular voting is usually what affects things such as the transportation infrastructure in your country or city. It’s a slow proceed though. Here in Oslo there has been a lot of investment in bike lanes, but just because one part of the local government builds more bike lanes doesn’t mean that other parts of the government will follow suit. Police still doesn’t care about cars illegally blocking the bike lanes. The people ploughing snow see bike lanes as the last thing that should need ploughing, preferably no earlier than 2 weeks after it snowed. A dedicated bike path I use to work is supposed to be ploughed within 2 hours of snow, but it took a week before anything was done and now three weeks later it’s still not to the standard that the government has set.
- sshine 2y ago
  Speaking of Oslo and bicycles, I just want to add an amazing statistic that surfaced a couple of years ago here on Hacker News: Oslo has a zero pedestrian and bicycle mortality rate! https://thecityfix.com/blog/how-oslo-achieved-zero-pedestrian-and-bicycle-fatalities-and-how-others-can-apply-what-worked/ https://thecityfix.com/blog/how-oslo-achieved-zero-pedestria... > In 2015, the political climate and public will in the City of Oslo changed the tone on accepting continued surface transportation fatalities. The mayor, city council and transport division staff all supported a shift in roadway decision-making from car-centric to people-centric. [...] Neighboring capitals with similar progressive bicycle cultures (Denmark, Sweden) have somewhat low but non-zero mortality rate as Oslo had 6 years ago. So the policies definitely make a change, but it's the consequence of a culture. You won't see American politicians suggesting a ban on cars in big cities.
  - hmottestad 2y ago
    We’ve had at least one cyclist killed since that article came out.
dijit 2y ago
I would agree with you, but Americans intentionally reinforce car dependence whenever it's discussed. It's bad enough that even non-US people regurgitate those talking points despite them being significantly less true for them; because they see it so much online.
- TulliusCicero 2y ago
  > I would agree with you, but Americans intentionally reinforce car dependence whenever it's discussed. They do, because their experience is that transit and biking really do suck and are useless. Which is accurate, for where they've lived. The problem is that you have to convince people that things could be better, when their lived experience is that it's always terrible.
  - lugu 2y ago
    I live in place known for its rainy weather, 15 km from work (because of the housing crisis). Being overweight, biking to work never crossed my mind for two years. Once I tried to commute during weekend, as a challenge. I realized a few things: - same duration as the train - it give me the exercise I needed - it relaxes me - it is free since I already have a bike Yes, it still take me 50 min to commute, but now I enjoy it and even volunteerly go to the office more often. It have been 6 months. My point is: those who complain about biking being terrible or impractical should give it a real try. It may fit you.
    - AstralStorm 2y ago
      And if you need help and can afford it, ebikes exist. Some of them really cheap. Hopefully not skimping on safeties though.
      - TulliusCicero 2y ago
        Ebikes are really great and I often ride one to work. They do help with speed, range, motivation, and of course, hills. They don't do anything about unsafe infrastructure though, which is by far the US' biggest problem for biking. To say that American bike infrastructure is garbage tier is an insult to garbage, that's how bad it typically is. It's extremely unsafe, and people can feel it, they can tell, hence why hardly anyone actually bikes to work.
saagarjha 2y ago
See, my point is that everyone first goes “it’s not me”, then they understand it is them and go “but it’s not my policies” and then they vote in the policies which are the problem. It’s totally fine to go “we need collective action to fix this”. But you have to actually join the collective action. You think billionaires are getting rich by committing environmental arbitrage? Then don’t oppose attempts to make the costs appropriate, even if you must now pay your fair share too.
- idle_zealot 2y ago
  Sure, recognizing that the problem is political is step one. Step two is... political activism, I guess? Lack of local political engagement and organizing is part of what allows problems like these to form.
  - saagarjha 2y ago
    Not just lack but outright apathy and villainizing of these attempts. If you try to tax gas some oil CEO will run a campaign explaining to the working class that their commute will now cost 10% more, which obviously makes people upset. Part of it is that we, unfortunately, can’t actually subsidize car commuters anymore. But part of it is that CEO is going to incur a cost of 50%, as he should, which is why he’s bothering to spend money riling people up.
    - derangedHorse 2y ago
      It is not feasible to take a bike or public transportation to work in many parts of the world so a policy change like that would just incur an additional cost to those who have no alternative. A better idea is to encourage other types of transportation in private companies rather than penalize existing companies with taxes. If taxing the companies will raise prices on consumers, you might as well consider it an additional tax on the people.
      - Forbo 2y ago
        Redistribute the tax back to the people. That way you're eliminating the price externality but offsetting the cost to individuals. The fossil fuel industry can't continue to plug their ears and ignore the costs associated with putting more and more carbon in the atmosphere. We need to hold them to account.

hmottestad 2y ago

Regular voting is usually what affects things such as the transportation infrastructure in your country or city. It’s a slow proceed though. Here in Oslo there has been a lot of investment in bike lanes, but just because one part of the local government builds more bike lanes doesn’t mean that other parts of the government will follow suit. Police still doesn’t care about cars illegally blocking the bike lanes. The people ploughing snow see bike lanes as the last thing that should need ploughing, preferably no earlier than 2 weeks after it snowed. A dedicated bike path I use to work is supposed to be ploughed within 2 hours of snow, but it took a week before anything was done and now three weeks later it’s still not to the standard that the government has set.

sshine 2y ago
Speaking of Oslo and bicycles, I just want to add an amazing statistic that surfaced a couple of years ago here on Hacker News: Oslo has a zero pedestrian and bicycle mortality rate! https://thecityfix.com/blog/how-oslo-achieved-zero-pedestrian-and-bicycle-fatalities-and-how-others-can-apply-what-worked/ https://thecityfix.com/blog/how-oslo-achieved-zero-pedestria... > In 2015, the political climate and public will in the City of Oslo changed the tone on accepting continued surface transportation fatalities. The mayor, city council and transport division staff all supported a shift in roadway decision-making from car-centric to people-centric. [...] Neighboring capitals with similar progressive bicycle cultures (Denmark, Sweden) have somewhat low but non-zero mortality rate as Oslo had 6 years ago. So the policies definitely make a change, but it's the consequence of a culture. You won't see American politicians suggesting a ban on cars in big cities.
- hmottestad 2y ago
  We’ve had at least one cyclist killed since that article came out.

dijit 2y ago

I would agree with you, but Americans intentionally reinforce car dependence whenever it's discussed. It's bad enough that even non-US people regurgitate those talking points despite them being significantly less true for them; because they see it so much online.

TulliusCicero 2y ago
> I would agree with you, but Americans intentionally reinforce car dependence whenever it's discussed. They do, because their experience is that transit and biking really do suck and are useless. Which is accurate, for where they've lived. The problem is that you have to convince people that things could be better, when their lived experience is that it's always terrible.
- lugu 2y ago
  I live in place known for its rainy weather, 15 km from work (because of the housing crisis). Being overweight, biking to work never crossed my mind for two years. Once I tried to commute during weekend, as a challenge. I realized a few things: - same duration as the train - it give me the exercise I needed - it relaxes me - it is free since I already have a bike Yes, it still take me 50 min to commute, but now I enjoy it and even volunteerly go to the office more often. It have been 6 months. My point is: those who complain about biking being terrible or impractical should give it a real try. It may fit you.
  - AstralStorm 2y ago
    And if you need help and can afford it, ebikes exist. Some of them really cheap. Hopefully not skimping on safeties though.
    - TulliusCicero 2y ago
      Ebikes are really great and I often ride one to work. They do help with speed, range, motivation, and of course, hills. They don't do anything about unsafe infrastructure though, which is by far the US' biggest problem for biking. To say that American bike infrastructure is garbage tier is an insult to garbage, that's how bad it typically is. It's extremely unsafe, and people can feel it, they can tell, hence why hardly anyone actually bikes to work.

saagarjha 2y ago

See, my point is that everyone first goes “it’s not me”, then they understand it is them and go “but it’s not my policies” and then they vote in the policies which are the problem. It’s totally fine to go “we need collective action to fix this”. But you have to actually join the collective action. You think billionaires are getting rich by committing environmental arbitrage? Then don’t oppose attempts to make the costs appropriate, even if you must now pay your fair share too.

idle_zealot 2y ago
Sure, recognizing that the problem is political is step one. Step two is... political activism, I guess? Lack of local political engagement and organizing is part of what allows problems like these to form.
- saagarjha 2y ago
  Not just lack but outright apathy and villainizing of these attempts. If you try to tax gas some oil CEO will run a campaign explaining to the working class that their commute will now cost 10% more, which obviously makes people upset. Part of it is that we, unfortunately, can’t actually subsidize car commuters anymore. But part of it is that CEO is going to incur a cost of 50%, as he should, which is why he’s bothering to spend money riling people up.
  - derangedHorse 2y ago
    It is not feasible to take a bike or public transportation to work in many parts of the world so a policy change like that would just incur an additional cost to those who have no alternative. A better idea is to encourage other types of transportation in private companies rather than penalize existing companies with taxes. If taxing the companies will raise prices on consumers, you might as well consider it an additional tax on the people.
    - Forbo 2y ago
      Redistribute the tax back to the people. That way you're eliminating the price externality but offsetting the cost to individuals. The fossil fuel industry can't continue to plug their ears and ignore the costs associated with putting more and more carbon in the atmosphere. We need to hold them to account.