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Impressive how cars are harmful to society. This is just a small example. We should be more radical in preventing the use of individual automobiles. If it work

by neves 1y ago

Impressive how cars are harmful to society. This is just a small example. We should be more radical in preventing the use of individual automobiles. If it works in a country where the auto is so ingrained in the culture and lifestyle, it can work anywhere.

HonestOp001 1y ago
The converse is how helpful cars are. It allows people to have the ability commute from areas they live at to where they work. It brings down the cost of living by expanding the commute availability circle, instead of driving up land values for the desirable areas.
- antisthenes 1y ago
  > It brings down the cost of living by expanding the commute availability circle It does this by sweeping a lot of negative externalities under the carpet of society. There's no magic here.
- neves 1y ago
  The dispute isn't between walking and cars, or between stone age and modernity. Just that individual cars have a terrible externalities. Impressive how public transport does not enter the mind of Americans.
  - marinmania 1y ago
    I feel like its often people talking past each other. I currently live in NYC and am very congestion pricing. Cars are a major negative to most people in the city. But I have also lived in rural parts of America. Yes, it is annoying you can't walk to a corner store, but cars are not that big of a deal. You can bike or run in the streets without concern that cars will come by. And housing is so cheap it makes it so worth it.
  - oceanplexian 1y ago
    If public transit even remotely resembled anything in China or Japan, Americans would ditch their cars in a heartbeat. But every train ride I've been on to Manhattan is like commuting through an open sewer while being harassed by strangers doing an obnoxious dance with a bluetooth speaker in my face, dodging puddles of urine, and wondering if today's the day I'll be thrown off the platform. Of course people would rather commute in a gas guzzling SUV. I don't even know how it's controversial. It must be a form of Stockholm syndrome to think that this would be attractive to any normally adjusted human being.
    - mplanchard 1y ago
      I’ve taken the train a lot in and around NYC, including a ton of subway trips. While the experience you’re describing is certainly not so rare as to be nonexistent, it’s also far from the norm. The large, large majority of subway rides I’ve taken (99% at least) were complete non-events. Perhaps you’re unlucky?
      - gottorf 1y ago
        A few points. 1. A <1% risk of loss, if catastrophic (e.g. thrown off the platform into an oncoming train), is unacceptable to bear, when there exist alternatives. 1b. Of course, people get in car accidents all the time. However, rightly or wrongly, people feel more in control when they're driving compared to when they're using public transit (or similarly, taking a commercial flight), which makes them feel better about it. And there is some element of sense here: accidents do not occur evenly among the population, because some drivers are better and more alert than others. 2. If you're traveling with small children, the various (however rare it may be) unpleasantries of NYC public transit become an order of magnitude more unpleasant. 3. There certainly is an element of Stockholm syndrome among NYC transit users, in that other very large cities around the world with ridership comparable to NYC have very little antisocial dysfunction, but in NYC it often gets waved away as "part and parcel of living in a big city".
        biorach 1y ago
        > A <1% risk of loss, if catastrophic (e.g. thrown off the platform into an oncoming train), how common is it for people to be thrown off the platform into an oncoming train in NY?
- ragazzina 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - dylan604 1y ago
    Please, this is the absolute least intelligent response to anything I've read today. You do nothing to further the conversation in anything resembling an informative way.
- kmeisthax 1y ago
  Expanding the commute availability circle does not increase the supply of housing, because people build sparser neighborhoods with larger lawns. If you want to increase the supply of housing, you need higher density, not longer distance. What longer distance does is make the closer areas more valuable, because people will pay $$$ for a shorter commute. And for those who can't afford the closer housing, they get to pay $$ on a car and gas instead. Cars are only helpful in exactly two scenarios: 1. You live in a remote rural area where any sort of transit infrastructure is comically infeasible. 99% of the people posting here do not quality for this. 2. You live in a city so maliciously planned out that living without a car is unthinkable and that any other option to get to where you're going is not available. I use the word "malicious" because the gutting of American cities' transit infrastructure was a deliberate act by American car companies giving their competition the mafia bust-out treatment.
  - tilne 1y ago
    > Expanding the commute availability circle does not increase the supply of housing, because people build sparser neighborhoods with larger lawns. This is not true. It is true in some circumstances, but definitely not in all. The fact that it’s presented as absolute fact hurts the point you’re trying to make imo.
  - Tade0 1y ago
    In my region of the world they enable having any sort of housing at all. Plenty of people don't have the credit score to buy anything livable within city limits, so they resort to buying apartments in the suburbs and small, adjacent cities. Public transport hasn't caught up because these places developed too fast and even though their inhabitants live and pay taxes there, the businesses they work for don't, so the tax base is all the lower due to that.
    - tristan957 1y ago
      Your point is valid, but the lack of affordable housing in your city is most likely due to the lifestyles that cars allow us to live. Single family homes and parking lots as far as the eye can see.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
kmeisthax 1y ago
NYC is an extreme outlier. The city itself is older than America, older than the British colonies even. It was built by the Dutch. It's infrastructure is closer to Tokyo's[0] than any other American city. Congestion charge works in NYC because anyone driving solo into Manhattan is either an idiot or a cop[1]. In any other city, congestion charge would be an effective tax on mobility, because every other city is so comically car-dependent. You might as well just raise the gas tax. Most cities don't even have a downtown to protect from cars, they're just suburban sprawl forever. The actually radical solution for places outside the Tri-State Area is as follows: - Ban mixed streets and highways ("stroads"). That is, any road in the network must either be built to exclusively service local properties, or carry high-speed thru traffic, not both. Existing stroads must be segmented into feeder streets and high-speed roads with ramp lanes on and off. - Level the zoning code. Allow mixed commercial everywhere, get rid of lawn setbacks, and allow up to four story buildings basically anywhere the soil won't collapse from it. The only limitations to this policy should be to prevent existing tenants from being renovicted immediately. - Require all new streets above the speed limit for (formerly) residential zoned streets have dedicated lanes for bikes and transit vehicles. The lanes must be segmented for safety. The transit lanes can start off as BRT and then get upgraded to LRT cheaply. If you don't want to run a BRT system then rent the lanes to private transit companies. I'm not sure how any of this would play in the motosexual parts of America, though. Even nominally blue states like California would shit themselves if you tried to even slightly inconvenience car owners. [0] To be clear, Tokyo as we know it today was basically rebuilt by America after we leveled it with firebombs. It was specifically built in the image of Manhattan. [1] I can imagine several reasons why NYPD cops might not want to take public transit which I won't elaborate further on here.
- mplanchard 1y ago
  This aligns perfectly with what I’d like to see every city and town in America do. Very well stated.
- db48x 1y ago
  > Most cities don't even have a downtown to protect from cars, they're just suburban sprawl forever. This is completely untrue.
ars 1y ago
Cars are only harmful in dense cities. They work just fine everywhere else. For example in small cities kids can play in the road without fear of cars. It's only in dense cities where they can not. Dense cities are also the only places where public transit works, so it kind of balances out. > This is just a small example. New York city is a small example? New York city is the largest city in the US, and pretty much the ONLY city where you can do this. And the mediocre results (10% is very little) from even NYC show that this will not even come close to working anywhere else.
- blackguardx 1y ago
  I live in a low density city and my neighbors are constantly complaining about how fast cars speed by and how it makes it unsafe for their kids. Dense cities are too congested for speeds to get that high. As an example, I felt safer biking in downtown San Francisco than I do on the country roads near me because people are constantly speeding and on their phones.
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    Suburbanites baselessly complaining about traffic is like old men complaining about kids these days. I don't take it too seriously
  - tilne 1y ago
    Part of this is the politicization of some of these issues. I previously lived on the outskirts of the suburbs and when I would bike out into the country I would receive a lot of hostility from dudes in big trucks that called me names as they drove by. Anecdotally, this seemed to happen way more frequently in the last two or three years.
sMarsIntruder 1y ago
This comment goes against any individual freedom common law and common sense.
- sMarsIntruder 1y ago
  ok commies

by neves 1y ago

HonestOp001 1y ago

The converse is how helpful cars are. It allows people to have the ability commute from areas they live at to where they work. It brings down the cost of living by expanding the commute availability circle, instead of driving up land values for the desirable areas.

antisthenes 1y ago
> It brings down the cost of living by expanding the commute availability circle It does this by sweeping a lot of negative externalities under the carpet of society. There's no magic here.
neves 1y ago
The dispute isn't between walking and cars, or between stone age and modernity. Just that individual cars have a terrible externalities. Impressive how public transport does not enter the mind of Americans.
- marinmania 1y ago
  I feel like its often people talking past each other. I currently live in NYC and am very congestion pricing. Cars are a major negative to most people in the city. But I have also lived in rural parts of America. Yes, it is annoying you can't walk to a corner store, but cars are not that big of a deal. You can bike or run in the streets without concern that cars will come by. And housing is so cheap it makes it so worth it.
- oceanplexian 1y ago
  If public transit even remotely resembled anything in China or Japan, Americans would ditch their cars in a heartbeat. But every train ride I've been on to Manhattan is like commuting through an open sewer while being harassed by strangers doing an obnoxious dance with a bluetooth speaker in my face, dodging puddles of urine, and wondering if today's the day I'll be thrown off the platform. Of course people would rather commute in a gas guzzling SUV. I don't even know how it's controversial. It must be a form of Stockholm syndrome to think that this would be attractive to any normally adjusted human being.
  - mplanchard 1y ago
    I’ve taken the train a lot in and around NYC, including a ton of subway trips. While the experience you’re describing is certainly not so rare as to be nonexistent, it’s also far from the norm. The large, large majority of subway rides I’ve taken (99% at least) were complete non-events. Perhaps you’re unlucky?
    - gottorf 1y ago
      A few points. 1. A <1% risk of loss, if catastrophic (e.g. thrown off the platform into an oncoming train), is unacceptable to bear, when there exist alternatives. 1b. Of course, people get in car accidents all the time. However, rightly or wrongly, people feel more in control when they're driving compared to when they're using public transit (or similarly, taking a commercial flight), which makes them feel better about it. And there is some element of sense here: accidents do not occur evenly among the population, because some drivers are better and more alert than others. 2. If you're traveling with small children, the various (however rare it may be) unpleasantries of NYC public transit become an order of magnitude more unpleasant. 3. There certainly is an element of Stockholm syndrome among NYC transit users, in that other very large cities around the world with ridership comparable to NYC have very little antisocial dysfunction, but in NYC it often gets waved away as "part and parcel of living in a big city".
      - biorach 1y ago
        > A <1% risk of loss, if catastrophic (e.g. thrown off the platform into an oncoming train), how common is it for people to be thrown off the platform into an oncoming train in NY?
ragazzina 1y ago
[flagged]
- dylan604 1y ago
  Please, this is the absolute least intelligent response to anything I've read today. You do nothing to further the conversation in anything resembling an informative way.
kmeisthax 1y ago
Expanding the commute availability circle does not increase the supply of housing, because people build sparser neighborhoods with larger lawns. If you want to increase the supply of housing, you need higher density, not longer distance. What longer distance does is make the closer areas more valuable, because people will pay $$$ for a shorter commute. And for those who can't afford the closer housing, they get to pay $$ on a car and gas instead. Cars are only helpful in exactly two scenarios: 1. You live in a remote rural area where any sort of transit infrastructure is comically infeasible. 99% of the people posting here do not quality for this. 2. You live in a city so maliciously planned out that living without a car is unthinkable and that any other option to get to where you're going is not available. I use the word "malicious" because the gutting of American cities' transit infrastructure was a deliberate act by American car companies giving their competition the mafia bust-out treatment.
- tilne 1y ago
  > Expanding the commute availability circle does not increase the supply of housing, because people build sparser neighborhoods with larger lawns. This is not true. It is true in some circumstances, but definitely not in all. The fact that it’s presented as absolute fact hurts the point you’re trying to make imo.
- Tade0 1y ago
  In my region of the world they enable having any sort of housing at all. Plenty of people don't have the credit score to buy anything livable within city limits, so they resort to buying apartments in the suburbs and small, adjacent cities. Public transport hasn't caught up because these places developed too fast and even though their inhabitants live and pay taxes there, the businesses they work for don't, so the tax base is all the lower due to that.
  - tristan957 1y ago
    Your point is valid, but the lack of affordable housing in your city is most likely due to the lifestyles that cars allow us to live. Single family homes and parking lots as far as the eye can see.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

kmeisthax 1y ago

NYC is an extreme outlier. The city itself is older than America, older than the British colonies even. It was built by the Dutch. It's infrastructure is closer to Tokyo's[0] than any other American city. Congestion charge works in NYC because anyone driving solo into Manhattan is either an idiot or a cop[1]. In any other city, congestion charge would be an effective tax on mobility, because every other city is so comically car-dependent. You might as well just raise the gas tax. Most cities don't even have a downtown to protect from cars, they're just suburban sprawl forever. The actually radical solution for places outside the Tri-State Area is as follows: - Ban mixed streets and highways ("stroads"). That is, any road in the network must either be built to exclusively service local properties, or carry high-speed thru traffic, not both. Existing stroads must be segmented into feeder streets and high-speed roads with ramp lanes on and off. - Level the zoning code. Allow mixed commercial everywhere, get rid of lawn setbacks, and allow up to four story buildings basically anywhere the soil won't collapse from it. The only limitations to this policy should be to prevent existing tenants from being renovicted immediately. - Require all new streets above the speed limit for (formerly) residential zoned streets have dedicated lanes for bikes and transit vehicles. The lanes must be segmented for safety. The transit lanes can start off as BRT and then get upgraded to LRT cheaply. If you don't want to run a BRT system then rent the lanes to private transit companies. I'm not sure how any of this would play in the motosexual parts of America, though. Even nominally blue states like California would shit themselves if you tried to even slightly inconvenience car owners. [0] To be clear, Tokyo as we know it today was basically rebuilt by America after we leveled it with firebombs. It was specifically built in the image of Manhattan. [1] I can imagine several reasons why NYPD cops might not want to take public transit which I won't elaborate further on here.

mplanchard 1y ago
This aligns perfectly with what I’d like to see every city and town in America do. Very well stated.
db48x 1y ago
> Most cities don't even have a downtown to protect from cars, they're just suburban sprawl forever. This is completely untrue.

ars 1y ago

Cars are only harmful in dense cities. They work just fine everywhere else. For example in small cities kids can play in the road without fear of cars. It's only in dense cities where they can not. Dense cities are also the only places where public transit works, so it kind of balances out. > This is just a small example. New York city is a small example? New York city is the largest city in the US, and pretty much the ONLY city where you can do this. And the mediocre results (10% is very little) from even NYC show that this will not even come close to working anywhere else.

blackguardx 1y ago
I live in a low density city and my neighbors are constantly complaining about how fast cars speed by and how it makes it unsafe for their kids. Dense cities are too congested for speeds to get that high. As an example, I felt safer biking in downtown San Francisco than I do on the country roads near me because people are constantly speeding and on their phones.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  Suburbanites baselessly complaining about traffic is like old men complaining about kids these days. I don't take it too seriously
- tilne 1y ago
  Part of this is the politicization of some of these issues. I previously lived on the outskirts of the suburbs and when I would bike out into the country I would receive a lot of hostility from dudes in big trucks that called me names as they drove by. Anecdotally, this seemed to happen way more frequently in the last two or three years.

sMarsIntruder 1y ago

This comment goes against any individual freedom common law and common sense.

sMarsIntruder 1y ago
ok commies