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This is just learned helplessness. The US already spends unfathomable amounts of money and resources on car infra, and there's always some nonsensical defense l
by sensanaty 25d ago
This is just learned helplessness. The US already spends unfathomable amounts of money and resources on car infra, and there's always some nonsensical defense like "it's just impossible to do it any other way!", as if cars are simply a law of nature. That lack of money can be solved by diverting some of the money going into roads into instead improving public transport infra.
The solution should NOT be investing in driverless cars, which are all owned by megacorps and leave people shackled to Google and Elon Musk.
You even mentioned another cliche, Geography, but then right below mention Switzerland. Same goes for NIMBYism and everything else you mentioned, how come these aren't issues when building massive 12 lane highways, but adding some dedicated bike paths suddenly turns into a quagmire that rivals the Manhattan Project in scale and difficulty?
Utrecht in the Netherlands is a perfect example of reversing course on car-centric designs. They had a canal, emptied it out to build a massive highway, then realized "hey, that's idiotic!" And turned it back into a canal and banned cars from the area completely. It's now a gorgeous city center free of cars, plentiful public transport options, accessible to wheelchair users and kids and literally everyone.
- binary0010 25d agoAmericans do not care about biklanes or modifying their cities in that way, they want driverless cars and more large multilane highways/roads so that's what we will get. Americans don't like walking/biking and love cars. It's not really learned helplessness it's just what the vast majority of our country wants. Remember the majority voters voted someone in who specifically campaigned on getting out of any climate change agreements and to bring back coal mining.
- llbeansandrice 25d agoThen why is Amtrak breaking ridership records?
- PorciiVorbesc 25d agoPeople are poor because of the economy and gave up on their car loans?
- llbeansandrice 24d agoSo you agree there should be more options besides cars?
- PorciiVorbesc 23d agoYes, I was never against that. I initially argued/asked where do you get the money to implement it if the city is broke? And until that is solved decades from now maybe, how should people get to work without their cars?
- llbeansandrice 23d agoColorado is shipping a regional rail project in the front range. Service will start in ‘29 and the district is voting on new sales tax to fund the expansions. It’s a very solvable problem. We’re also not talking about removing car infrastructure just funding a small amount of reasonable local transit. You can get quite far with Bus Rapid Transit, bike facilities, etc. The goal is to reduce the vehicle miles traveled in cars in general. Right now it’s very hard for any individual to make that choice because the transit infrastructure sucks.
- PorciiVorbesc 22d ago>Colorado is shipping a regional rail project in the front range. Unfortunately my city doesn't have US/Colorado money. >the district is voting on new sales tax to fund the expansion Won't more sales tax make the already poor poorer? My country already tried that and that was the effect. >It’s a very solvable problem. If you have money, everything is solvable.
- xnx 25d agoLosing $1.8B/year ($55/ride) isn't anything to be proud of.
- llbeansandrice 24d agoRoads cost $200b a year and that doesn’t include the individual cost of owning a vehicle, fuel, insurance and maintenance. It also ignores the opportunity cost in having parking lots and land taken up by highways instead of being more economically productive in even small cities.