5 ms·

Exactly. EVs are a band-aid, but the true cure is simply viable alternatives to driving.

SequoiaHope 1y ago
Yep. I’m finally in a place to bike to work and elsewhere and it’s remarkable how much I can get done without a car. But the infrastructure sucks and there’s so much room for improvement.
- lostlogin 1y ago
  Looking forward to your commute is so great. Have you treated yourself to a nice bike?
  - SequoiaHope 1y ago
    I have a few nice bikes but I did recently get a 30 year old titanium mountain bike frame and I’ve turned it in to a city and dirt gravel bike. It’s super fun!
- andrepd 1y ago
  Moving to a place where I can bike anywhere safely has been one of the best changes to my quality of life. It's really not even complicated to do the bare minimum: whenever there are 2 or more lanes, fence one off with concrete dividers to make a bike lane. Whenever there's just 1, pave it with stones and add bumps, and cars and bikes can co-exist. Bang, I just made your city safer, healthier, and the car traffic quicker. You're welcome.
cyberax 1y ago
It's the inverse. Bikes are a temporary 19-th century fix for the lack of easily available personal cars.
- piva00 1y ago
  Cars are a 20th century fix for the lack of easily available, comfortable, and fast public transportation. It's a shame the USA got stuck in the mid-20th century on that front.
  - cyberax 1y ago
    Yep. Transit was invented to help move workers from massive factories into living areas. Definitely a 20-th century thing. And EVs are from the 21-st century. They are here to fix the utter inhumanity of dense cities, and eventually throw them into a dustbin of history.
    - piva00 1y ago
      EVs are just a change in fuel, nothing else changes, it's ludicrous to think they will solve anything related to why cities become denser, I can't even comprehend the logical steps you have to take to think that. Dense cities exist because there's value in living close by to other amenities provided by dense cities. There's no way out of denser cities, amenities will pool around where more people live just by sheer economies of scale (serving more people with less infrastructure). You still have the choice to opt out of that, live far away and have more space, the trade-offs with or without EVs will be the exact same.
      - cyberax 1y ago
        No, the combination of densification turning toxic (see: San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Manhattan) and self-driving becoming available will change that. > There's no way out of denser cities There is: tax dense office space. There are no magically unique "amenities" in dense cities that make life worth living there, for the vast majority of people. Theaters and museum visits are at most a monthly occurrence (if that). And specialty ethnic restaurants are usually not a deal-breaker. Everything else is now available online: specialty stores, interesting classes, art-house movie clubs, etc.
        piva00 1y ago
- lostlogin 1y ago
  It took me 15 mins to get home 8km away just now. My colleague has a 500m shorter route and took 55mins. Cars are better?
  - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
    You're supposed to do something about the traffic. Like build more housing so commutes are shorter distances.
    - bmicraft 1y ago
      More housing in _that_ model is more people with more cars on the road and needing parking spaces. The inevitable conclusion to such a model is cities like Houston, TX where everything is twice as far away because 50% of the city is just parking lot and another 25% just roads/intersections.
      - lostlogin 1y ago
        There was a comment on an anti-car HN thread a few weeks back suggesting city centres get larger, pushing housing further out. Once cities are 100% road, cars can drive unimpeded.
      - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
        > More housing in _that_ model is more people with more cars on the road and needing parking spaces. The existing model is already that everybody is driving everywhere, and then you need a parking space at every place for the number of people patronizing it during its peak hours. Building more housing doesn't inherently increase or decrease the number of parking spaces you need. You still need one for each car. What it does is reduce the distance you have to drive, because then you don't have to drive through miles of low density suburbs to get anywhere. Moreover, with mixed use zoning, it puts more of the places you might want to go within walking distance, which does reduce the number of parking spaces you need at the destination. > The inevitable conclusion to such a model is cities like Houston, TX where everything is twice as far away because 50% of the city is just parking lot and another 25% just roads/intersections. The "problem" in Houston is that it's in Texas, which is big and susceptible to sprawl. Houston Metro has a population density of ~700/sq mi, compared to ~3200/sq mi for New York Metro. Then land is cheaper and therefore parking is cheaper and taller buildings are less economical. That's what causes everything to be more spread out. But the problem in higher population density areas isn't parking -- when land is more expensive then you can justify building taller buildings and parking beneath the building or even multi-level parking garages to conserve space. The problem in higher population density areas is that building more of those things is now prohibited. You have a plot of land and you want to put a parking garage with 50 spaces on the ground floor, two shops on the second floor and eight condos on the third floor. You can't, because it's only zoned for a single-family home.
chneu 1y ago
[flagged]
- jimbob45 1y ago
  A lot of people need trucks for their work. Hispanics in gardening and construction in particular.
  - lostlogin 1y ago
    Why Hispanics?
  - alpaca128 1y ago
    Europe has plenty of gardeners and construction projects too, but I see at most one pickup truck per decade and it is always someone who definitely doesn’t need one and drives like they’re in a mad max movie. If you think all truck owners actually need one, count how many of the ones you see are carrying some load and do the math.
    - llampx 1y ago
      Europe has plenty of massive white vans.
      - alpaca128 1y ago
        And how many of those are used by people who don’t need a massive white van?
        llampx 1y ago
        Why does it matter whether you think someone "needs" a pickup or not? Align their crash ratings and NCAP values with every other car and the problem will take care of itself. Personally I have the huge white vans because they reduce visibility when driving as well as while parked. I live in a big city and its difficult to drive when there's a wall parked at every other intersection.
ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
I do agree, but I'd like to point out that EVs aren't necessarily car-shaped. E-scooters and e-bikes can do wonders in transporting people without so many of the issues that driving produces (e.g. congestion, tyre pollution, collisions etc).

Yep. I’m finally in a place to bike to work and elsewhere and it’s remarkable how much I can get done without a car. But the infrastructure sucks and there’s so much room for improvement.

lostlogin 1y ago
Looking forward to your commute is so great. Have you treated yourself to a nice bike?
- SequoiaHope 1y ago
  I have a few nice bikes but I did recently get a 30 year old titanium mountain bike frame and I’ve turned it in to a city and dirt gravel bike. It’s super fun!
andrepd 1y ago
Moving to a place where I can bike anywhere safely has been one of the best changes to my quality of life. It's really not even complicated to do the bare minimum: whenever there are 2 or more lanes, fence one off with concrete dividers to make a bike lane. Whenever there's just 1, pave it with stones and add bumps, and cars and bikes can co-exist. Bang, I just made your city safer, healthier, and the car traffic quicker. You're welcome.

cyberax 1y ago

It's the inverse. Bikes are a temporary 19-th century fix for the lack of easily available personal cars.

piva00 1y ago
Cars are a 20th century fix for the lack of easily available, comfortable, and fast public transportation. It's a shame the USA got stuck in the mid-20th century on that front.
- cyberax 1y ago
  Yep. Transit was invented to help move workers from massive factories into living areas. Definitely a 20-th century thing. And EVs are from the 21-st century. They are here to fix the utter inhumanity of dense cities, and eventually throw them into a dustbin of history.
  - piva00 1y ago
    EVs are just a change in fuel, nothing else changes, it's ludicrous to think they will solve anything related to why cities become denser, I can't even comprehend the logical steps you have to take to think that. Dense cities exist because there's value in living close by to other amenities provided by dense cities. There's no way out of denser cities, amenities will pool around where more people live just by sheer economies of scale (serving more people with less infrastructure). You still have the choice to opt out of that, live far away and have more space, the trade-offs with or without EVs will be the exact same.
    - cyberax 1y ago
      No, the combination of densification turning toxic (see: San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Manhattan) and self-driving becoming available will change that. > There's no way out of denser cities There is: tax dense office space. There are no magically unique "amenities" in dense cities that make life worth living there, for the vast majority of people. Theaters and museum visits are at most a monthly occurrence (if that). And specialty ethnic restaurants are usually not a deal-breaker. Everything else is now available online: specialty stores, interesting classes, art-house movie clubs, etc.
      - piva00 1y ago
lostlogin 1y ago
It took me 15 mins to get home 8km away just now. My colleague has a 500m shorter route and took 55mins. Cars are better?
- AnthonyMouse 1y ago
  You're supposed to do something about the traffic. Like build more housing so commutes are shorter distances.
  - bmicraft 1y ago
    More housing in _that_ model is more people with more cars on the road and needing parking spaces. The inevitable conclusion to such a model is cities like Houston, TX where everything is twice as far away because 50% of the city is just parking lot and another 25% just roads/intersections.
    - lostlogin 1y ago
      There was a comment on an anti-car HN thread a few weeks back suggesting city centres get larger, pushing housing further out. Once cities are 100% road, cars can drive unimpeded.
    - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
      > More housing in _that_ model is more people with more cars on the road and needing parking spaces. The existing model is already that everybody is driving everywhere, and then you need a parking space at every place for the number of people patronizing it during its peak hours. Building more housing doesn't inherently increase or decrease the number of parking spaces you need. You still need one for each car. What it does is reduce the distance you have to drive, because then you don't have to drive through miles of low density suburbs to get anywhere. Moreover, with mixed use zoning, it puts more of the places you might want to go within walking distance, which does reduce the number of parking spaces you need at the destination. > The inevitable conclusion to such a model is cities like Houston, TX where everything is twice as far away because 50% of the city is just parking lot and another 25% just roads/intersections. The "problem" in Houston is that it's in Texas, which is big and susceptible to sprawl. Houston Metro has a population density of ~700/sq mi, compared to ~3200/sq mi for New York Metro. Then land is cheaper and therefore parking is cheaper and taller buildings are less economical. That's what causes everything to be more spread out. But the problem in higher population density areas isn't parking -- when land is more expensive then you can justify building taller buildings and parking beneath the building or even multi-level parking garages to conserve space. The problem in higher population density areas is that building more of those things is now prohibited. You have a plot of land and you want to put a parking garage with 50 spaces on the ground floor, two shops on the second floor and eight condos on the third floor. You can't, because it's only zoned for a single-family home.

chneu 1y ago

[flagged]

jimbob45 1y ago
A lot of people need trucks for their work. Hispanics in gardening and construction in particular.
- lostlogin 1y ago
  Why Hispanics?
- alpaca128 1y ago
  Europe has plenty of gardeners and construction projects too, but I see at most one pickup truck per decade and it is always someone who definitely doesn’t need one and drives like they’re in a mad max movie. If you think all truck owners actually need one, count how many of the ones you see are carrying some load and do the math.
  - llampx 1y ago
    Europe has plenty of massive white vans.
    - alpaca128 1y ago
      And how many of those are used by people who don’t need a massive white van?
      - llampx 1y ago
        Why does it matter whether you think someone "needs" a pickup or not? Align their crash ratings and NCAP values with every other car and the problem will take care of itself. Personally I have the huge white vans because they reduce visibility when driving as well as while parked. I live in a big city and its difficult to drive when there's a wall parked at every other intersection.

ndsipa_pomu 1y ago

I do agree, but I'd like to point out that EVs aren't necessarily car-shaped. E-scooters and e-bikes can do wonders in transporting people without so many of the issues that driving produces (e.g. congestion, tyre pollution, collisions etc).