Car Enthusiasts Should Hate Car Dependency
September 22, 2023 2:10 PM Subscribe
As car enthusiasts, we should all try to be advocates of safer infrastructure and increased mobility options. Ethan, a self-proclaimed car enthusiast behind the channel Hello Road makes the case for less car dependency and more options for better modes of everyday transportation. Not everyone needs a car, and not everyone who has one wants to be driving, so why can't the US get behind doing better?
I like to drive and many, many Americans don’t live in big cities on either coast.
Many of my friends work in film production and it’s very hard to transport your grip equipment on a bus.
Ethancan record his YouTube videos on his phone in the luxury of his home but not everyone can do that. I’ll also bet he drives his kid to school and to his office, as there’s not great public transportation options in the SFV.
posted by Ideefixe at 4:03 PM on September 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
Many of my friends work in film production and it’s very hard to transport your grip equipment on a bus.
Ethancan record his YouTube videos on his phone in the luxury of his home but not everyone can do that. I’ll also bet he drives his kid to school and to his office, as there’s not great public transportation options in the SFV.
posted by Ideefixe at 4:03 PM on September 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
it would be pretty neat if there were great public transit options, though. pretty neat.
we should probably get working on that.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 4:13 PM on September 22, 2023 [14 favorites]
we should probably get working on that.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 4:13 PM on September 22, 2023 [14 favorites]
I mean, one of the points when critiquing car dependency from a driver’s perspective is that when there are other good transportation options for folks who don’t want or need to drive to get from point a to point b, that makes life much easier and better for the folks who do (eg. local delivery truck drivers and others who have too much cargo for public transit options).
posted by eviemath at 4:36 PM on September 22, 2023 [20 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 4:36 PM on September 22, 2023 [20 favorites]
I like to drive and many, many Americans don’t live in big cities on either coast. Many of my friends work in film production and it’s very hard to transport your grip equipment on a bus.
I don’t have the energy to respond to this comment with the extensive disagreement it deserves, so I will just, for the sake of argument, agree with the premise of the comment and say, that’s fine. Can the tens of millions of us that do live in “big cities on either coast” get some fucking public transportation that isn’t warmed-over dog spit?
posted by rhymedirective at 5:24 PM on September 22, 2023 [51 favorites]
I don’t have the energy to respond to this comment with the extensive disagreement it deserves, so I will just, for the sake of argument, agree with the premise of the comment and say, that’s fine. Can the tens of millions of us that do live in “big cities on either coast” get some fucking public transportation that isn’t warmed-over dog spit?
posted by rhymedirective at 5:24 PM on September 22, 2023 [51 favorites]
This Spanish city has been restricting cars for 24 years. Here's what we can learn from it - "Pontevedra, Spain, offers some of the best evidence available about what happens when a city is reconfigured to accommodate people, rather than cars."
posted by kliuless at 5:44 PM on September 22, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by kliuless at 5:44 PM on September 22, 2023 [9 favorites]
Many of my friends work in film production and it’s very hard to transport your grip equipment on a bus.
Love to justify the need for private transportation with many public costs, with the exploitation of gig workers. I understand it's the norm for grips to supply their own equipment but that doesn't make it right.
posted by Uncle at 5:58 PM on September 22, 2023 [4 favorites]
Love to justify the need for private transportation with many public costs, with the exploitation of gig workers. I understand it's the norm for grips to supply their own equipment but that doesn't make it right.
posted by Uncle at 5:58 PM on September 22, 2023 [4 favorites]
Until we have a better grip on Covid, I don’t think big new public transportation initiatives are likely to be funded.
posted by jamjam at 10:37 PM on September 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by jamjam at 10:37 PM on September 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
I’m pretty sure the lack of funding for public transit projects is unrelated to COVID, which basically all governments have declared is no longer a thing (*in actuality, it is still a thing). But regardless, constructing accessible, useful, and pleasant public transit that incorporates better ventilation design, together with promoting a culture of mask-wearing when sick to avoid spreading respiratory infections of any sort, would be the better long-term solutions.
(And regulation to change employer incentives that currently pressure employees to work while sick, such as requiring at least 10 or more paid sick days per year for all employees, regardless of hours or other precarious status; but that’s getting farther afield.)
posted by eviemath at 10:50 PM on September 22, 2023 [8 favorites]
(And regulation to change employer incentives that currently pressure employees to work while sick, such as requiring at least 10 or more paid sick days per year for all employees, regardless of hours or other precarious status; but that’s getting farther afield.)
posted by eviemath at 10:50 PM on September 22, 2023 [8 favorites]
Ideefixe, here is what freedom of choice in mobility looks like in a rural/suburban area:
https://nebula.tv/videos/notjustbikes-this-train-station-has-no-business-being-this-good/
And here is how giving people who don't want to drive other options makes life better for drivers:
https://youtu.be/d8RRE2rDw4k?si=fd8dtQNLTAm0Kxu6
I grew up in suburban and rural America, and I now live in the country these videos cover, and I wish so much that folks in the States could see the examples I see all around me of how people-first infrastructure makes life better, greener, more equitable, and less stressful in every environment.
posted by antinomia at 11:49 PM on September 22, 2023 [12 favorites]
https://nebula.tv/videos/notjustbikes-this-train-station-has-no-business-being-this-good/
And here is how giving people who don't want to drive other options makes life better for drivers:
https://youtu.be/d8RRE2rDw4k?si=fd8dtQNLTAm0Kxu6
I grew up in suburban and rural America, and I now live in the country these videos cover, and I wish so much that folks in the States could see the examples I see all around me of how people-first infrastructure makes life better, greener, more equitable, and less stressful in every environment.
posted by antinomia at 11:49 PM on September 22, 2023 [12 favorites]
Well said, will have to properly view this later. Certainly rings true to me - I do like to drive but I recognize the difference between having it as an option and being forced to get behind the wheel. What happens if i lose the ability to safely drive? Or I cant afford a car? Not to mention the car-first infrastructure we see everywhere in the US. It's always left me feeling weirdly stressed out, which I didn't fully recognize until I moved to Europe and fully experienced the alternative.
I like to drive and many, many Americans don’t live in big cities on either coast.
Many of my friends work in film production and it’s very hard to transport your grip equipment on a bus.
I've done hands-on contracting work before where I had to drive a work van every day and I still happily push for more public transit anywhere and everywhere. More alternatives means fewer cars on the road, which means I (and the other people who truly need to drive) have less traffic jams and headaches to deal with. Win-win. Nobody is coming to seize your car or make it illegal, we are just trying to provide more and better alternatives.
Until we have a better grip on Covid, I don’t think big new public transportation initiatives are likely to be funded.
Not going to expand on this other than to say no official or politician in their right mind is going to seriously say this. It's 2023, the world has long since moved on. Whether that's the right course of action is a seperate topic I dont want to rehash here, but if politicians and CEOs are going to force people to return to their offices and revitialize their city centers then the least they can do is advocate for better transit options for people to get there.
posted by photo guy at 12:45 AM on September 23, 2023 [5 favorites]
I like to drive and many, many Americans don’t live in big cities on either coast.
Many of my friends work in film production and it’s very hard to transport your grip equipment on a bus.
I've done hands-on contracting work before where I had to drive a work van every day and I still happily push for more public transit anywhere and everywhere. More alternatives means fewer cars on the road, which means I (and the other people who truly need to drive) have less traffic jams and headaches to deal with. Win-win. Nobody is coming to seize your car or make it illegal, we are just trying to provide more and better alternatives.
Until we have a better grip on Covid, I don’t think big new public transportation initiatives are likely to be funded.
Not going to expand on this other than to say no official or politician in their right mind is going to seriously say this. It's 2023, the world has long since moved on. Whether that's the right course of action is a seperate topic I dont want to rehash here, but if politicians and CEOs are going to force people to return to their offices and revitialize their city centers then the least they can do is advocate for better transit options for people to get there.
posted by photo guy at 12:45 AM on September 23, 2023 [5 favorites]
More alternatives means fewer cars on the road, which means I (and the other people who truly need to drive) have less traffic jams and headaches to deal with.
Sometimes, the opposite happens. I used to take night classes (about 30km from my home) and there was ample street parking in the evenings since the city empties out. As part of transitioning the city away from cars, they built bike lanes and got rid of all the street side parking along the main road, and expanded the local park and removed about 60 parking spaces in the process.
Instead of just cruising down to the city, landing in a parking lot and attending class or taking exams, I'd get stuck with about 20 other cars driving in circles around the park, zipping between different lanes trying to get lucky and nail a spot just as someone pulled out.
Worse, this happened around sunset, where visibility is really poor, with long large shadows and sun in your eyes - everyone is driving at slightly higher speed trying to get to the empty spot before another car does, everyone's eyes are peeled looking for a car spot (instead of looking for pedestrians) and we're doing it right next to a public park. Not to mention burning 10-15 minutes of fossil fuels driving in circles that we didn't used to before.
Sure, there's induced demand and ultimately we HAVE to make driving inconvenient to reduce traffic, but anecdotally this is precisely what happened - there was a rise in traffic congestion just from people driving in circles looking for a car park, versus before where there was ample parking and it was just a matter of, if you got there early you parked nearby, if you got there later you just parked a little further and walked. Perhaps some people were discouraged from driving and took public transport or biked instead, which reduced traffic elsewhere in the city, but not for people like me commuting in from 30km away.
posted by xdvesper at 5:59 AM on September 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
Sometimes, the opposite happens. I used to take night classes (about 30km from my home) and there was ample street parking in the evenings since the city empties out. As part of transitioning the city away from cars, they built bike lanes and got rid of all the street side parking along the main road, and expanded the local park and removed about 60 parking spaces in the process.
Instead of just cruising down to the city, landing in a parking lot and attending class or taking exams, I'd get stuck with about 20 other cars driving in circles around the park, zipping between different lanes trying to get lucky and nail a spot just as someone pulled out.
Worse, this happened around sunset, where visibility is really poor, with long large shadows and sun in your eyes - everyone is driving at slightly higher speed trying to get to the empty spot before another car does, everyone's eyes are peeled looking for a car spot (instead of looking for pedestrians) and we're doing it right next to a public park. Not to mention burning 10-15 minutes of fossil fuels driving in circles that we didn't used to before.
Sure, there's induced demand and ultimately we HAVE to make driving inconvenient to reduce traffic, but anecdotally this is precisely what happened - there was a rise in traffic congestion just from people driving in circles looking for a car park, versus before where there was ample parking and it was just a matter of, if you got there early you parked nearby, if you got there later you just parked a little further and walked. Perhaps some people were discouraged from driving and took public transport or biked instead, which reduced traffic elsewhere in the city, but not for people like me commuting in from 30km away.
posted by xdvesper at 5:59 AM on September 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
I think the point in the Netherlands is that the country recognized this car-centric planning mentality as a disaster for livable cities back in the 70's and have been moving all planning and infrastructure to where it is now as streets and neighborhoods get rebuilt. It's been a long term process.
My city just removed curbs in a downtown area where a weekend market occurs in a process called traffic calming which should slow traffic down as it passes through. In the past ten years I've seen the start of separated bike lines in a couple of areas heavily trafficked by students on their way to and from the university in town.
My workplace is 4 miles away by bike and I ride it daily without getting killed or crushed. It's sometimes harrowing but doable with long stretches on multi-use paths. I have the option of a bus ride with two transfers that get me there in 30 minutes, also pretty convenient during the winter.
I think of my town as an island of somewhat acceptable transit in a sea of awful, which is most of the US. Since I can't wait another 50-75 years for the infrastructure to change like it did in the Netherlands, it's really easier to move to another country than wait for the planning system to finally catch up with the idea of livable cities in the US.
posted by diode at 6:51 AM on September 23, 2023 [5 favorites]
My city just removed curbs in a downtown area where a weekend market occurs in a process called traffic calming which should slow traffic down as it passes through. In the past ten years I've seen the start of separated bike lines in a couple of areas heavily trafficked by students on their way to and from the university in town.
My workplace is 4 miles away by bike and I ride it daily without getting killed or crushed. It's sometimes harrowing but doable with long stretches on multi-use paths. I have the option of a bus ride with two transfers that get me there in 30 minutes, also pretty convenient during the winter.
I think of my town as an island of somewhat acceptable transit in a sea of awful, which is most of the US. Since I can't wait another 50-75 years for the infrastructure to change like it did in the Netherlands, it's really easier to move to another country than wait for the planning system to finally catch up with the idea of livable cities in the US.
posted by diode at 6:51 AM on September 23, 2023 [5 favorites]
Montreal’s Mayor Reclaims a Famous Road From Cars and Trucks
Since becoming mayor in 2017, Ms. Plante has introduced a flurry of cycling measures, including a 184-kilometer network of bike paths on main arteries, with curbs and medians physically separating cyclists from motor traffic. Last fall, the city announced plans to add 200 kilometers to the so-called express bike network.
On top of that, Ms. Plante’s administration closes 10 streets to motor vehicles each summer.
When the bike network expansion was announced late last year, the city estimated that cycling had risen by about 20 percent in 2021. Even on days with less than ideal weather, cyclists are a notable presence downtown.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:30 AM on September 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
Since becoming mayor in 2017, Ms. Plante has introduced a flurry of cycling measures, including a 184-kilometer network of bike paths on main arteries, with curbs and medians physically separating cyclists from motor traffic. Last fall, the city announced plans to add 200 kilometers to the so-called express bike network.
On top of that, Ms. Plante’s administration closes 10 streets to motor vehicles each summer.
When the bike network expansion was announced late last year, the city estimated that cycling had risen by about 20 percent in 2021. Even on days with less than ideal weather, cyclists are a notable presence downtown.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:30 AM on September 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
Can the tens of millions of us that do live in “big cities on either coast” get some fucking public transportation that isn’t warmed-over dog spit
In an attempt to avoid the same arguments that always seems to happen, a sincere question: why is increasing access to public transportation in areas it's useful for not the thing being moved forward more often? It confuses me when I see a lot of focus on taking away space for cars, which is going to naturally be a contentious issue especially for car users, rather than on increasing access to public transit for those who want it, which doesn't need to harm car users and can just be a net boon for everyone. People who don't want to use public transportation shouldn't be forced or pressured into using it, but it's no skin off anyone's nose if other people have more frequent and safe transportation.
posted by corb at 7:52 AM on September 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
In an attempt to avoid the same arguments that always seems to happen, a sincere question: why is increasing access to public transportation in areas it's useful for not the thing being moved forward more often? It confuses me when I see a lot of focus on taking away space for cars, which is going to naturally be a contentious issue especially for car users, rather than on increasing access to public transit for those who want it, which doesn't need to harm car users and can just be a net boon for everyone. People who don't want to use public transportation shouldn't be forced or pressured into using it, but it's no skin off anyone's nose if other people have more frequent and safe transportation.
posted by corb at 7:52 AM on September 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
Because the more car-dedicated spaces there are, the less you can use for public transit? Bus lanes, light rail, and stations/depots can't just magically not take up space in cities, and a lot of the space they should be able to use is currently dedicated to cars and parking.
posted by sagc at 7:53 AM on September 23, 2023 [13 favorites]
posted by sagc at 7:53 AM on September 23, 2023 [13 favorites]
Cars take up a lot of space. It's not unreasonable for cities to stop devoting the majority of street space to catering to out-of-town motorists, and instead focusing on its own needs.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 8:13 AM on September 23, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 8:13 AM on September 23, 2023 [9 favorites]
probably the elephant is that great swathes of the country have decided that transit is a poor people thing and also great swathes of the country fuckin' despise poor people with the heat of a thousand angry suns even before you factor in the racialization of poverty at which point the hate becomes positively murderous and long story short why should we pay for transit for them amirite
like if someone were to ask me to sum up why we don't have good transit in this country in 15 seconds i'd tell them what white people from the suburbs around atlanta think the acronym "marta" stands for
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:28 AM on September 23, 2023 [5 favorites]
like if someone were to ask me to sum up why we don't have good transit in this country in 15 seconds i'd tell them what white people from the suburbs around atlanta think the acronym "marta" stands for
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:28 AM on September 23, 2023 [5 favorites]
This link takes you to a PDF of a.study to refit the streetscape of El Camino Real, a reasonably typical North American stroad.
The road has 120 feet of width in total.
8 feet are for the sidewalks on both sides.
8 feet are for trees and landscaping along the sidewalks.
102 feet are for cars, specifically:
- 72 feet for driving cars
- 11 feet for storing cars waiting to turn left (turn lanes) - sometimes there are trees in this space too.
- 14 feet for storing empty cars (parking lane)
- 5 feet for space so oncoming cars don't crash into each other (median).
- 14 feet for storing cars.
Any further width requires buying thousands of properties, although 120 feet is comically ample, even considering the preposterously oversized vehicles driven to an appallingly low standard.
And also, there are many similar roads that have 0 feet for pedestrians right now.
Where the fuck do you think the space is coming from to make room for transit, cycling, micromobility, pedestrians and street life?
posted by Superilla at 8:38 AM on September 23, 2023 [5 favorites]
The road has 120 feet of width in total.
8 feet are for the sidewalks on both sides.
8 feet are for trees and landscaping along the sidewalks.
102 feet are for cars, specifically:
- 72 feet for driving cars
- 11 feet for storing cars waiting to turn left (turn lanes) - sometimes there are trees in this space too.
- 14 feet for storing empty cars (parking lane)
- 5 feet for space so oncoming cars don't crash into each other (median).
- 14 feet for storing cars.
Any further width requires buying thousands of properties, although 120 feet is comically ample, even considering the preposterously oversized vehicles driven to an appallingly low standard.
And also, there are many similar roads that have 0 feet for pedestrians right now.
Where the fuck do you think the space is coming from to make room for transit, cycling, micromobility, pedestrians and street life?
posted by Superilla at 8:38 AM on September 23, 2023 [5 favorites]
probably the only way to make el camino real not a blasted hellscape is to close it to cars altogether. that thing is an entirely miserable experience for everyone involved. it's like silicon valley's deep self-loathing physically manifested itself as 50 miles of parking lots
like i've seen worse roads but i've never seen quite so bad a road going through quite so rich an area
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:50 AM on September 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
like i've seen worse roads but i've never seen quite so bad a road going through quite so rich an area
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:50 AM on September 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
I mean, one of the points when critiquing car dependency from a driver’s perspective is that when there are other good transportation options for folks who don’t want or need to drive to get from point a to point b, that makes life much easier and better for the folks who doThis especially annoys me when drivers use it for concern-trolling about people with disabilities. This is a favorite NIMBY talking point here, and they’re never honest enough to even acknowledge the existence of people who can’t drive or who, because our country is harsh and uncaring, can’t afford a vehicle with the necessary accommodations; and you’ll get the fastest subject change ever if you suggest reserving more parking for accessibility needs or improved bus stops & sidewalks.
posted by adamsc at 8:58 AM on September 23, 2023 [8 favorites]
>People who don't want to use public transportation shouldn't be forced or pressured into using it
If they're going to insist on using cars, they should be pressured into using smaller, slower, cleaner, quieter cars. And every time they drive or park, they should help pay for local public transit. Every road should be a toll road. Every on-street parking spot should be metered. Every time they go over the local speed limit, their car should squeal on them.
posted by pracowity at 12:35 PM on September 23, 2023 [8 favorites]
If they're going to insist on using cars, they should be pressured into using smaller, slower, cleaner, quieter cars. And every time they drive or park, they should help pay for local public transit. Every road should be a toll road. Every on-street parking spot should be metered. Every time they go over the local speed limit, their car should squeal on them.
posted by pracowity at 12:35 PM on September 23, 2023 [8 favorites]
People who don't want to use public transportation shouldn't be forced or pressured into using it,
Yeah, but I'd say everyone should be forced/pressured to build it through the magic of taxation, and, y'know what? When transit is designed to work, no pressure is necessary to get people to abandon the frankly annoying task of moving a multi-ton vehicle around. In American I think the main reason people don't use public transit is stigma (only poor people ride the bus!) and underdesign for the capacity (if you don't walk fast enough, you won't get to that bus station a mile from your house in time. But don't worry, there'll be another one along in 90 minutes, if they're not running behind).
Like, in places where there's a tram stop a quarter mile from your house and fairly reliable arrivals every 8 minutes, and at most one change between there and your destination, no pressure is really necessary to make people use it. They could still drive, but why would they want to go through all the hassle of sitting at the wheel, having to pay attention to the road, occasionally refill the tank with petrol, and then find a parking spot at their destination when they can just sit back and have all that done in a clean, spacious vehicle, and likely pay less to do so, after all the gas and parking fees and maintenance.
And for those few people who actually enjoy driving a commute more than they enjoy not driving it, well, an emptier road is a lot more enjoyable, so they too should be glad to see their tax money moving lots of people without needing a car.
posted by jackbishop at 1:43 PM on September 23, 2023 [6 favorites]
Yeah, but I'd say everyone should be forced/pressured to build it through the magic of taxation, and, y'know what? When transit is designed to work, no pressure is necessary to get people to abandon the frankly annoying task of moving a multi-ton vehicle around. In American I think the main reason people don't use public transit is stigma (only poor people ride the bus!) and underdesign for the capacity (if you don't walk fast enough, you won't get to that bus station a mile from your house in time. But don't worry, there'll be another one along in 90 minutes, if they're not running behind).
Like, in places where there's a tram stop a quarter mile from your house and fairly reliable arrivals every 8 minutes, and at most one change between there and your destination, no pressure is really necessary to make people use it. They could still drive, but why would they want to go through all the hassle of sitting at the wheel, having to pay attention to the road, occasionally refill the tank with petrol, and then find a parking spot at their destination when they can just sit back and have all that done in a clean, spacious vehicle, and likely pay less to do so, after all the gas and parking fees and maintenance.
And for those few people who actually enjoy driving a commute more than they enjoy not driving it, well, an emptier road is a lot more enjoyable, so they too should be glad to see their tax money moving lots of people without needing a car.
posted by jackbishop at 1:43 PM on September 23, 2023 [6 favorites]
It confuses me when I see a lot of focus on taking away space for cars, which is going to naturally be a contentious issue especially for car users, rather than on increasing access to public transit for those who want it, which doesn't need to harm car users and can just be a net boon for everyone.You describe an impossibility. Cars/trucks have the most space. Neverthless they're the loudest, most kinetically dangerous and murderous and injurious, and the most space-wasteful, which destroys walkable, bikeable, culturally vibrant spaces. They also do the most damage to roads so they're the most expensive to build infrastructure for, and pollute the most from their tires and exhaust, so reducing their use is an important public spending and public health goal on its own. You can't fix any of those with more non-car transit! You have to reduce absolute car use; you must cut back on car infra.
Worst yet, cars involve the most individual sunk costs, and as you so well point out by your presence in every thread nevertheless have the tightest hold on people's idea of what normal and acceptable is. Car culture is a death cult which always demands more sacrifice: more lanes, more highways, more parking spaces, for less and less benefit to fewer and fewer. Its thirst cannot be sated. For all those reasons our highest priority must be to take away from cars, so its power and unquenchable thirst grows no further.
To your specific point: people prefer to drive if they can, even if it's expensive and slow, because of the normalcy, prestige, convenience, and sunk costs of owning a car. To get people to take the bus you have to make a car lane a bus lane, which ends up getting everyone there faster and cleaner and safer and cheaper but car drivers hate it. Repeat for bikes. When all the space is for cars there's no way to make other transit modes nice without taking something from the cars.
You need sticks to get people out of cars the same way Kurt Tucholsky wrote about in the domain of real estate:
Das Ideal
Ja, das möchste:
Eine Villa im Grünen mit großer Terrasse,
vorn die Ostsee, hinten die Friedrichstraße;
mit schöner Aussicht, ländlich-mondän,
vom Badezimmer ist die Zugspitze zu sehn –
aber abends zum Kino hast dus nicht weit.
Even an urbanite would love a single-family house with a yard and two cars right next to an S-Bahn station and all the cultural pleasures of center city life. It's just a childish thing to want because it's impossible to make a city out of single-family houses where everybody has a car. Cars are by mathematical definition a tool for the minority. As it is they destroy our cities with their outsize claim on space, noise, public money, risk, and pollution. Any step towards rectifying that has to involve chipping away at that outsize claim. It's not a purely zero-sum game — getting people out of cars makes the remaining car traffic nicer — but the dimension of physical space is absolutely a zero-sum game in which car culture must be brought to heel.
posted by daveliepmann at 2:15 PM on September 23, 2023 [5 favorites]
The article recognizes that people prefer cars. The comment thread not so much.
posted by Galvanic at 3:07 PM on September 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Galvanic at 3:07 PM on September 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
The comment thread is pointing out that there are, in fact, a sizeable number of people who don’t prefer cars if feasible public transit options are available; and that building for those uses would be a net boon to everyone.
posted by eviemath at 3:30 PM on September 23, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 3:30 PM on September 23, 2023 [7 favorites]
If they're going to insist on using cars, they should be pressured into using smaller, slower, cleaner, quieter cars
I was reading an article recently on the Protestant roots of American cultural assumptions and how these unconscious religious cultural motifs affects secular discussion, and nowhere do I think it is more on display than in discussions about how people should change their personal behavior for political aims. You have the semi-apocalyptic discussion of the good world that the righteous people want (clean, 'culturally vibrant'), and the bad world that only the heretics want that must be destroyed (the loud, wasteful, 'death cult'). And, like any discussion that is subconsciously focused on sin, it seems to focus not on positive incentives (which work *and* don't piss people off) to change the actual identified problems, but on ways to punish or "pressure" the unrighteous into changing their nefarious ways.
Cleaner and quieter cars, for example: make them cheap, and easy to fix, and people will buy them. Offer programs, turn in your PolluteMobile and get twice its trade-in value towards a new, reasonably priced EcoQuietMobile. The amount of people - even car drivers - who actually like loud, dirty cars is vanishingly small. Right now, the eco-friendly cars are prohibitively expensive and difficult to fix at home. But there's no reason it has to be that way. And changing that would eliminate the noise and pollution complaints, at least. But that might mean *rewarding* people for their sinful preferences, so I suspect we'll never agree, which is a shame, because it would actually..help.
In American I think the main reason people don't use public transit is stigma (only poor people ride the bus!) and underdesign for the capacity
I think, and I say this as gently as I can, that it's often difficult to understand, from different positions and lifestyles, why public transit, even more idealized public transit, doesn't work for everyone. And I think that once again these unspoken assumptions creep in! I think that public transit evangelists, just like with any other religion, are often very well intentioned and truly believe what they are saying, and that everyone can get to the great transit heaven if they just follow the precepts and believe. I see what you are saying - and I don't mean to single you out, it's just a very common refrain - presented often. That people just need to get outside the stigma and realize how good public transit can be for them.
This is very, very similar though to what religious evangelists often believe: that if only people would get past their preconceptions and just read the Bible, just come to church, they would find themselves overcome - and they often refuse to listen to people politely but firmly explaining that they have good and valid reasons for their atheism, and it has nothing to do with the presentation. Similarly, while public transit can and should be improved, there are some people for whom public transit will never, ever work. and it has nothing to do with stigma or the convenience. It might have to do with the way that they're traveling, or something about themselves, or something about their lifestyle or work habits. And those people too, politely but firmly explaining that they have good and valid reasons for their travel preferences, should be listened to. Because when you ignore those reasons, people are just talking past each other and getting frustrated, and nothing ever gets solved.
posted by corb at 3:47 PM on September 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
I was reading an article recently on the Protestant roots of American cultural assumptions and how these unconscious religious cultural motifs affects secular discussion, and nowhere do I think it is more on display than in discussions about how people should change their personal behavior for political aims. You have the semi-apocalyptic discussion of the good world that the righteous people want (clean, 'culturally vibrant'), and the bad world that only the heretics want that must be destroyed (the loud, wasteful, 'death cult'). And, like any discussion that is subconsciously focused on sin, it seems to focus not on positive incentives (which work *and* don't piss people off) to change the actual identified problems, but on ways to punish or "pressure" the unrighteous into changing their nefarious ways.
Cleaner and quieter cars, for example: make them cheap, and easy to fix, and people will buy them. Offer programs, turn in your PolluteMobile and get twice its trade-in value towards a new, reasonably priced EcoQuietMobile. The amount of people - even car drivers - who actually like loud, dirty cars is vanishingly small. Right now, the eco-friendly cars are prohibitively expensive and difficult to fix at home. But there's no reason it has to be that way. And changing that would eliminate the noise and pollution complaints, at least. But that might mean *rewarding* people for their sinful preferences, so I suspect we'll never agree, which is a shame, because it would actually..help.
In American I think the main reason people don't use public transit is stigma (only poor people ride the bus!) and underdesign for the capacity
I think, and I say this as gently as I can, that it's often difficult to understand, from different positions and lifestyles, why public transit, even more idealized public transit, doesn't work for everyone. And I think that once again these unspoken assumptions creep in! I think that public transit evangelists, just like with any other religion, are often very well intentioned and truly believe what they are saying, and that everyone can get to the great transit heaven if they just follow the precepts and believe. I see what you are saying - and I don't mean to single you out, it's just a very common refrain - presented often. That people just need to get outside the stigma and realize how good public transit can be for them.
This is very, very similar though to what religious evangelists often believe: that if only people would get past their preconceptions and just read the Bible, just come to church, they would find themselves overcome - and they often refuse to listen to people politely but firmly explaining that they have good and valid reasons for their atheism, and it has nothing to do with the presentation. Similarly, while public transit can and should be improved, there are some people for whom public transit will never, ever work. and it has nothing to do with stigma or the convenience. It might have to do with the way that they're traveling, or something about themselves, or something about their lifestyle or work habits. And those people too, politely but firmly explaining that they have good and valid reasons for their travel preferences, should be listened to. Because when you ignore those reasons, people are just talking past each other and getting frustrated, and nothing ever gets solved.
posted by corb at 3:47 PM on September 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
why is increasing access to public transportation in areas it's useful for not the thing being moved forward more often? It confuses me when I see a lot of focus on taking away space for cars
Because you can't do one without the other. Here's a street view of Main Street between 1st and Brook in Louisville, KY, a fairly ordinary section of the downtown of a mid-sized American city. It is also, to the extent Louisville has such a thing, a major public-transit nucleus; Main between Brook and 4th is somewhere all the buses go. Obviously, public-transit proponents would be very interested in increasing options along this corridor; dedicated buslines, bikelanes, tramlines. You seem to agree that transportation proponents should be trying to make these things happen. So, with that in mind, the obvious followup question is, "where do we put them?" Look at that street scene. There are sidewalks which are reasonably spacious but hardly expansive; you could wring 4 or so feet out of them if you didn't mind forcing pedestrian traffic into a much less serviceable width (there's a lot of foot traffic downtown round the lunch hour; those sidewalks do fill up) and chopping down all the trees. That's maybe a minimal bike lane, and definitely not a dedicated bus or tram lane. On that street (which, I want to stress, is not at all atypical of American streets in mid-size urban centers), pretty much the only choices for adding additional transit options are to carve space out of the area presently used for cars, either driving or stationary.
So, yes, we could start with "we need more tramlines and dedicated bus lanes and bike lanes" instead of "we need smaller streets", but that would just move the point of resistance 5 minutes further in the conversation, when the natural question of where the space for those services is going to come from.
Now, there are some transit options which don't raise this question, but they all have limitations. Watertaxis, by their very nature, don't use roads, but they can only serve stations on waterfront areas. Subways don't interfere with surface traffic, but subways are much, much more expensive than surface transit and for that reason tend to be often economically infeasible (sometimes, but not always, complicated by local geology), and even when economically feasible tend to be limited to major trunk lines rather than local service (with some exceptions; NYC has a surprisingly dense subway system). Dedicated lanes could easily be added in suburbs and exurbs where there's more space, but it's often the service in the urban areas which is most urgently needed, since that's where the population density is).
posted by jackbishop at 5:08 PM on September 23, 2023 [4 favorites]
Because you can't do one without the other. Here's a street view of Main Street between 1st and Brook in Louisville, KY, a fairly ordinary section of the downtown of a mid-sized American city. It is also, to the extent Louisville has such a thing, a major public-transit nucleus; Main between Brook and 4th is somewhere all the buses go. Obviously, public-transit proponents would be very interested in increasing options along this corridor; dedicated buslines, bikelanes, tramlines. You seem to agree that transportation proponents should be trying to make these things happen. So, with that in mind, the obvious followup question is, "where do we put them?" Look at that street scene. There are sidewalks which are reasonably spacious but hardly expansive; you could wring 4 or so feet out of them if you didn't mind forcing pedestrian traffic into a much less serviceable width (there's a lot of foot traffic downtown round the lunch hour; those sidewalks do fill up) and chopping down all the trees. That's maybe a minimal bike lane, and definitely not a dedicated bus or tram lane. On that street (which, I want to stress, is not at all atypical of American streets in mid-size urban centers), pretty much the only choices for adding additional transit options are to carve space out of the area presently used for cars, either driving or stationary.
So, yes, we could start with "we need more tramlines and dedicated bus lanes and bike lanes" instead of "we need smaller streets", but that would just move the point of resistance 5 minutes further in the conversation, when the natural question of where the space for those services is going to come from.
Now, there are some transit options which don't raise this question, but they all have limitations. Watertaxis, by their very nature, don't use roads, but they can only serve stations on waterfront areas. Subways don't interfere with surface traffic, but subways are much, much more expensive than surface transit and for that reason tend to be often economically infeasible (sometimes, but not always, complicated by local geology), and even when economically feasible tend to be limited to major trunk lines rather than local service (with some exceptions; NYC has a surprisingly dense subway system). Dedicated lanes could easily be added in suburbs and exurbs where there's more space, but it's often the service in the urban areas which is most urgently needed, since that's where the population density is).
posted by jackbishop at 5:08 PM on September 23, 2023 [4 favorites]
The article recognizes that people prefer cars. The comment thread not so much.More accurately, people prefer cars when not too many other people also have them, and when they don’t have to pay the full cost. That’s the problem and the solution: stop subsidizing driving so heavily and fewer people will choose it, which also makes it better for the remaining drivers.
posted by adamsc at 5:26 PM on September 23, 2023 [5 favorites]
It may not be a main issue impacting people’s behavior in the aggregate - there are studies on the topic but I don’t know what they found ofd the top of my head - but in most of the smaller towns/cities with bus systems that I’ve lived in, I have absolutely heard real people directly say that they don’t want to ride the bus because it is dirty, smelly, and has other people on it who make them uncomfortable. Having ridden those same busses and knowing the actual condition of the busses and fellow passengers, and also having witnessed who else those same bus-avoiders describe in similar terms, I can say with a high degree of confidence that there are absolutely a set of people in North America whose stated reason for avoiding using public transit is classism. (My experience is in northern, majority white areas; but classism and racism in the US tend to be strongly linked, of course.)
posted by eviemath at 8:55 PM on September 23, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 8:55 PM on September 23, 2023 [4 favorites]
Cleaner and quieter cars, for example: make them cheap, and easy to fix, and people will buy them. Offer programs, turn in your PolluteMobile and get twice its trade-in value towards a new, reasonably priced EcoQuietMobile. The amount of people - even car drivers - who actually like loud, dirty cars is vanishingly small.
Unfortunately this has not been the case (I work in automotive R&D). In Australia around 2010 we launched the Ford Fiesta at $19,000 for the automatic petrol (6.1L/100km) and $21,500 for the diesel manual (4.4L/100km). Cheap, eco-friendly, dynamic and great to drive, takes on steep hills and curves with no problems. I drove both the diesel and petrol variants between 2010 and 2014 but they were ultimately discontinued due to customer preference shifting away to trucks.
From 2016 to 2023, the top sellers have been trucks. #1 position this year is taken by Toyota Hilux with 38,525 sales year to date, #2 with Ford Ranger with 37,644 sales year to date. The most popular variants have seen insane demand - the $70,000 Wildtrak V6 - has a 12 month wait period for new buyers, and the $87,000 Raptor has a 24 month wait period for new buyers.
The public has overwhelmingly voted with their wallet and said they want larger, heavier, and thirstier vehicles, and they're willing to pay a huge premium for it. And unlike the US, Australia has an almost total lack of import tariffs and no CAFE rules to mess around with buying incentives, so this is as close to a "free" market as you can get in terms of customer preferences - can't blame a chicken tax or weird vehicle footprint rules for incentivizing larger vehicles.
Though, one thing is for sure, is that nothing lasts forever and trucks will fall off the top spot sooner or later, though I'm betting sooner... In 2023, we see the rise of two new contenders in #3 and #4 place - the Chinese MG ZS, at $23,000 for a sub-compact SUV rated at 6.7L/100km sold 20,624 year to date, and the Chinese made Tesla Model Y at $78,000 for the LR model sold 19,646 year to date. So that's maybe a hint of the future - Chinese ICE and EV dominance, like the way the Apple iPhone dominates sales - they can simply manufacture at cheaper cost and higher quality than the rest of the world, and they aren't really interested in making trucks.
posted by xdvesper at 10:11 PM on September 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
Unfortunately this has not been the case (I work in automotive R&D). In Australia around 2010 we launched the Ford Fiesta at $19,000 for the automatic petrol (6.1L/100km) and $21,500 for the diesel manual (4.4L/100km). Cheap, eco-friendly, dynamic and great to drive, takes on steep hills and curves with no problems. I drove both the diesel and petrol variants between 2010 and 2014 but they were ultimately discontinued due to customer preference shifting away to trucks.
From 2016 to 2023, the top sellers have been trucks. #1 position this year is taken by Toyota Hilux with 38,525 sales year to date, #2 with Ford Ranger with 37,644 sales year to date. The most popular variants have seen insane demand - the $70,000 Wildtrak V6 - has a 12 month wait period for new buyers, and the $87,000 Raptor has a 24 month wait period for new buyers.
The public has overwhelmingly voted with their wallet and said they want larger, heavier, and thirstier vehicles, and they're willing to pay a huge premium for it. And unlike the US, Australia has an almost total lack of import tariffs and no CAFE rules to mess around with buying incentives, so this is as close to a "free" market as you can get in terms of customer preferences - can't blame a chicken tax or weird vehicle footprint rules for incentivizing larger vehicles.
Though, one thing is for sure, is that nothing lasts forever and trucks will fall off the top spot sooner or later, though I'm betting sooner... In 2023, we see the rise of two new contenders in #3 and #4 place - the Chinese MG ZS, at $23,000 for a sub-compact SUV rated at 6.7L/100km sold 20,624 year to date, and the Chinese made Tesla Model Y at $78,000 for the LR model sold 19,646 year to date. So that's maybe a hint of the future - Chinese ICE and EV dominance, like the way the Apple iPhone dominates sales - they can simply manufacture at cheaper cost and higher quality than the rest of the world, and they aren't really interested in making trucks.
posted by xdvesper at 10:11 PM on September 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
I drove both the diesel and petrol variants between 2010 and 2014 but they were ultimately discontinued due to customer preference shifting away to trucks.
Yeah, I think I was thinking more "similar models, just quieter/cleaner and cheaper", but there may be design reasons that's harder at the moment which you would know better than I. My sense as a consumer is that preference for trucks is about utility or perceived utility - like, I've considered getting one so I could haul around furniture and things like that without having to always rent a van all the time. I know there was a lot of buzz around even the absolutely hideous Tesla truck, for example.
Is diesel better for the environment, though? And if so, was it marketed that way? I certainly had no idea, if so - I just think of it as "the big truck fuel you can't put in your car or it will explode".
posted by corb at 10:21 PM on September 23, 2023
Yeah, I think I was thinking more "similar models, just quieter/cleaner and cheaper", but there may be design reasons that's harder at the moment which you would know better than I. My sense as a consumer is that preference for trucks is about utility or perceived utility - like, I've considered getting one so I could haul around furniture and things like that without having to always rent a van all the time. I know there was a lot of buzz around even the absolutely hideous Tesla truck, for example.
Is diesel better for the environment, though? And if so, was it marketed that way? I certainly had no idea, if so - I just think of it as "the big truck fuel you can't put in your car or it will explode".
posted by corb at 10:21 PM on September 23, 2023
We're bound by the laws of physics - a Fiesta or Yaris weighs about 1150kg while Hilux or Ranger weighs about 2300kg - and generally if you weigh twice as a much you're consuming way more fuel to repeatedly accelerate that mass up to driving speed. There's no such thing as a "cleaner" truck - it costs twice as much raw material to make, and roughly costs twice as much fuel to run. You want something cleaner and cheaper, we have to go back to 1150kg vehicles.
People HAVE preferred small cars in the past, though, and there's no reason we couldn't go back to that. From 2011 to 2015 the #1 spot was taken by a small car, the Toyota Corolla. People's tastes evolve over time. You're probably right that consumers right now prefer trucks for their perceived utility - and not so much for the actual utility they provide, but for the self-image it projects to others - independence, capable, rugged, self-reliant. I'm thinking by 2026-2032 something else will take the top spot for awhile, say a Chinese made SUV EV, and hopefully it's a small one like the MG ZS EV - maybe the battery power limits for an EV will act as a natural constraint on vehicle sizes.
Doesn't really matter which, both diesel and petrol are bad for the environment at the end of the day, it's too difficult to give a general answer - really depends under which regulations (Euro3? Euro4? Euro6?) and what type of pollution you're referring to (CO2? CO? NOX? PM?). I don't think eco-friendliness was ever a serious consideration in marketing.
posted by xdvesper at 11:13 PM on September 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
People HAVE preferred small cars in the past, though, and there's no reason we couldn't go back to that. From 2011 to 2015 the #1 spot was taken by a small car, the Toyota Corolla. People's tastes evolve over time. You're probably right that consumers right now prefer trucks for their perceived utility - and not so much for the actual utility they provide, but for the self-image it projects to others - independence, capable, rugged, self-reliant. I'm thinking by 2026-2032 something else will take the top spot for awhile, say a Chinese made SUV EV, and hopefully it's a small one like the MG ZS EV - maybe the battery power limits for an EV will act as a natural constraint on vehicle sizes.
Doesn't really matter which, both diesel and petrol are bad for the environment at the end of the day, it's too difficult to give a general answer - really depends under which regulations (Euro3? Euro4? Euro6?) and what type of pollution you're referring to (CO2? CO? NOX? PM?). I don't think eco-friendliness was ever a serious consideration in marketing.
posted by xdvesper at 11:13 PM on September 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
Diesel cars produce a bit less CO2 but horrendous amounts of NOx, which makes them slightly better for the planet but terrible for local air pollution.
Euro 6 regulations require diesels to produce similar NOx levels to what was previously required of petrol vehicles. The extra equipment / tuning needed to do that has made small diesels impractical.
In the UK there was a point where diesels got close half the new car market, but the requirement for them not to be filthy has pushed that down to 5%.
posted by grahamparks at 1:36 AM on September 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
Euro 6 regulations require diesels to produce similar NOx levels to what was previously required of petrol vehicles. The extra equipment / tuning needed to do that has made small diesels impractical.
In the UK there was a point where diesels got close half the new car market, but the requirement for them not to be filthy has pushed that down to 5%.
posted by grahamparks at 1:36 AM on September 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
From 2011 to 2015 the #1 spot was taken by a small car, the Toyota Corolla. People's tastes evolve over time
People's tastes run towards trucks and SUVs because the costs for gasoline are artificially low. There just isn't the same economic pressure to discourage wasteful driving habits that there was in the early 2010s.
Taste aside, gas prices were around $8 to $9 a gallon during the tail-end of the Bush administration (WA state prices, adjust for local situation). People were actively seeking out fuel-efficient vehicles in the post-Bush years — even used beaters like Geo Metros — as a result of sticker shock in keeping the car fed.
Ignoring modern-day EVs for a moment, that was also back before we were spending diminished Trump-bucks, so — adjusting further for inflation — gasoline prices from roughly $11.41 to $12.43 might perhaps put pressure on people to go back to reasonable-sized vehicles, or encourage faster transition to EV.
But making gasoline expensive via tax policy — to discourage gas-guzzlers — is the sort of thing that Governor Inslee (WA) is receiving criticism over currently, as an example. It's a tough problem to solve; moving to EVs is hard as new car prices are now high enough to be beyond many people's budgets.
Fossil fuel companies can gouge a captive audience still forced to use gasoline, as a result. This audience is then directed by oil refiners to point the finger at government, while said companies make record profits.
This puts pressure on the state around election time to keep gasoline taxes artificially low and further enable the purchase and use of gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs. Until EVs are cheaper, we're stuck in a vicious cycle of cheap gasoline and lobbyist-dictated tax policies reinforcing bad choices.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 3:00 AM on September 24, 2023
People's tastes run towards trucks and SUVs because the costs for gasoline are artificially low. There just isn't the same economic pressure to discourage wasteful driving habits that there was in the early 2010s.
Taste aside, gas prices were around $8 to $9 a gallon during the tail-end of the Bush administration (WA state prices, adjust for local situation). People were actively seeking out fuel-efficient vehicles in the post-Bush years — even used beaters like Geo Metros — as a result of sticker shock in keeping the car fed.
Ignoring modern-day EVs for a moment, that was also back before we were spending diminished Trump-bucks, so — adjusting further for inflation — gasoline prices from roughly $11.41 to $12.43 might perhaps put pressure on people to go back to reasonable-sized vehicles, or encourage faster transition to EV.
But making gasoline expensive via tax policy — to discourage gas-guzzlers — is the sort of thing that Governor Inslee (WA) is receiving criticism over currently, as an example. It's a tough problem to solve; moving to EVs is hard as new car prices are now high enough to be beyond many people's budgets.
Fossil fuel companies can gouge a captive audience still forced to use gasoline, as a result. This audience is then directed by oil refiners to point the finger at government, while said companies make record profits.
This puts pressure on the state around election time to keep gasoline taxes artificially low and further enable the purchase and use of gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs. Until EVs are cheaper, we're stuck in a vicious cycle of cheap gasoline and lobbyist-dictated tax policies reinforcing bad choices.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 3:00 AM on September 24, 2023
People's tastes run towards trucks and SUVs because the costs for gasoline are artificially low.
This is generally true, but... humans are only "mostly" rational and our subconscious makes our purchasing decisions for us and if you ask us why we picked that product our brains are in a post-hoc justification mode trying to justify the sunk cost...
I really do believe there was a genuine brand goodwill around small cars at the time, and maybe even a bit of frugality with customers suffering a bit of trauma after the 2008 GFC, and some reactionary pushback against the larger sedans of the past. Smaller cars were, even, I dare say, sexy for awhile.
I also don't believe there is a plausible oil price that would have prematurely ended the "truck era" we're living in. I can believe oil prices being a factor when people were being frugal and buying a $26,000 compact, I don't believe oil prices are a significant factor when you have people lining up to buy a $70,000 truck.
I'm talking about sales figures for Australia, and if you track fuel prices in $A per liter for Victoria
Large Car Era (Commodore top seller for decades prior)
2006 - 126.0
2007 - 126.0
2008 - 143.4
2009 - 121.3
2010 - 125.8
Compact Car Era (Toyota Corolla / Mazda 3 top seller)
2011 - 139.8
2012 - 140.7
2013 - 145.4
2014 - 145.7
2015 - 126.3
Truck Era (Toyota Hilux top seller)
2016 - 116.4
2017 - 128.7
2018 - 143.4
2019 - 141.1
2020 - 123.9
2021 - 147.6
2022 - 184.3
2023 - 184.8 (currently 2.02)
There's not... a clear-cut link between fuel prices and buying habits. There's a confounding factor which is the AUD vs USD exchange rate, where the AUD appreciated significantly in 2010 which insulated us from the fuel price spike. I don't really see a significant difference in fuel prices which would have caused the switch to small cars, especially once you factor in inflation. And today's prices of 1.84 isn't making anyone switch.
posted by xdvesper at 3:54 AM on September 24, 2023 [2 favorites]
This is generally true, but... humans are only "mostly" rational and our subconscious makes our purchasing decisions for us and if you ask us why we picked that product our brains are in a post-hoc justification mode trying to justify the sunk cost...
I really do believe there was a genuine brand goodwill around small cars at the time, and maybe even a bit of frugality with customers suffering a bit of trauma after the 2008 GFC, and some reactionary pushback against the larger sedans of the past. Smaller cars were, even, I dare say, sexy for awhile.
I also don't believe there is a plausible oil price that would have prematurely ended the "truck era" we're living in. I can believe oil prices being a factor when people were being frugal and buying a $26,000 compact, I don't believe oil prices are a significant factor when you have people lining up to buy a $70,000 truck.
I'm talking about sales figures for Australia, and if you track fuel prices in $A per liter for Victoria
Large Car Era (Commodore top seller for decades prior)
2006 - 126.0
2007 - 126.0
2008 - 143.4
2009 - 121.3
2010 - 125.8
Compact Car Era (Toyota Corolla / Mazda 3 top seller)
2011 - 139.8
2012 - 140.7
2013 - 145.4
2014 - 145.7
2015 - 126.3
Truck Era (Toyota Hilux top seller)
2016 - 116.4
2017 - 128.7
2018 - 143.4
2019 - 141.1
2020 - 123.9
2021 - 147.6
2022 - 184.3
2023 - 184.8 (currently 2.02)
There's not... a clear-cut link between fuel prices and buying habits. There's a confounding factor which is the AUD vs USD exchange rate, where the AUD appreciated significantly in 2010 which insulated us from the fuel price spike. I don't really see a significant difference in fuel prices which would have caused the switch to small cars, especially once you factor in inflation. And today's prices of 1.84 isn't making anyone switch.
posted by xdvesper at 3:54 AM on September 24, 2023 [2 favorites]
corb, a better analogy is the temperance movement, not religion. As in, a significant minority of people are ruining life for everyone else by abusing what should be a nice but rare tool.
When I say cars destroy cultural spaces, I'm not making an abstract point. My federal government is bulldozing famous cultural spots (against city will) to build an urban highway at tremendous expense. Conversely, I’m writing this from my neighborhood’s public park, now filled with hundreds of people, which only exists because we took the space away from cars.
When I say car culture is insatiable, I'm not talking in metaphors: suburban reactionaries outvoted my city center, so now the pedestrian/bike corridor along my wife's commute is gone and the city halted all bike lane construction. Remember the context: cars are used for a minority of trips and are owned by a minority of (rich) households, yet receive the lion's share of public money and space.
To the broader point: your claim that “positive incentives work” is wishful thinking. It's obviously unrealistic when cars start with ~all the public space, and it doesn't work when we know marginal improvements to non-car infra don't get people out of their cars.
posted by daveliepmann at 4:20 AM on September 24, 2023 [5 favorites]
When I say cars destroy cultural spaces, I'm not making an abstract point. My federal government is bulldozing famous cultural spots (against city will) to build an urban highway at tremendous expense. Conversely, I’m writing this from my neighborhood’s public park, now filled with hundreds of people, which only exists because we took the space away from cars.
When I say car culture is insatiable, I'm not talking in metaphors: suburban reactionaries outvoted my city center, so now the pedestrian/bike corridor along my wife's commute is gone and the city halted all bike lane construction. Remember the context: cars are used for a minority of trips and are owned by a minority of (rich) households, yet receive the lion's share of public money and space.
To the broader point: your claim that “positive incentives work” is wishful thinking. It's obviously unrealistic when cars start with ~all the public space, and it doesn't work when we know marginal improvements to non-car infra don't get people out of their cars.
posted by daveliepmann at 4:20 AM on September 24, 2023 [5 favorites]
More accurately, people prefer cars when not too many other people also have them, and when they don’t have to pay the full cost.
People prefer cars enough that they consistently vote for politicians who will build more roads, even at greater cost. Cars thus join very few other issues (national defense, law enforcement, social security) where this is true. The subsidy you talk about is a sign of *how much* people like being able to drive.
And people like cars so much that when those new roads appear, they use them at much greater levels, even if that means slowing down average speed -- a fact so embarrassing to anti-car advocates they invented a way of handwaving it away ("induced demand") instead of asking really simple questions (like "do people actually mind congestion that much, despite what they say?" and "at what average traffic speed do people actually get out of their cars?").
posted by Galvanic at 7:28 AM on September 24, 2023
People prefer cars enough that they consistently vote for politicians who will build more roads, even at greater cost. Cars thus join very few other issues (national defense, law enforcement, social security) where this is true. The subsidy you talk about is a sign of *how much* people like being able to drive.
And people like cars so much that when those new roads appear, they use them at much greater levels, even if that means slowing down average speed -- a fact so embarrassing to anti-car advocates they invented a way of handwaving it away ("induced demand") instead of asking really simple questions (like "do people actually mind congestion that much, despite what they say?" and "at what average traffic speed do people actually get out of their cars?").
posted by Galvanic at 7:28 AM on September 24, 2023
From just the preceding comment, for example,
suburban reactionaries outvoted my city center
It’s exceedingly naive to point to voting results as a proxy for support for public transit vs car infrastructure in larger cities where urban center and suburban populations are aggregated, or anywhere with significant voter disenfranchisement and gerrymandering issues. Many states effectively require a driver’s license as ID to register to vote, with obtaining alternate forms of valid photo ID being much more difficult. Other states have “motor voter” programs, automatically registering eligible voters based on drivers license info, which are a very good idea overall in terms of health of democracy and ensuring access to the right to vote, but will skew voters toward those who drive. Many states that are all-in on voter disenfranchisement have also been locating polling locations in places that are harder to get to for those without a vehicle; or, since the US doesn’t make voting day a paid holiday or require employers to provide time off, those without cars may simply not have time on their day, given poor current public transit options, to get to a polling location to vote.
And that’s before you take into account the fact that building out better public and non-car transportation options, due to space issues noted in other comments above, requires first removing some space for car transportation and then construction can take a couple-few years, with overall transportation being harder in the mean time. So even though there might be strong support for the end state, people might struggle with the short term difficulties. (This not being able to support a better end state due to slightly worse short term state being too much difficulty is, of course, partly also a feature of the current economic precarity that those who would benefit from better public transit infrastructure are forced into by our current systems. It the shoe dilemma: not being able to afford the more comfortable, longer lasting shoes in the short term, and thus paying more while slowly hurting one’s feet through wearing poor quality shoes in the long term.)
posted by eviemath at 9:08 AM on September 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
suburban reactionaries outvoted my city center
It’s exceedingly naive to point to voting results as a proxy for support for public transit vs car infrastructure in larger cities where urban center and suburban populations are aggregated, or anywhere with significant voter disenfranchisement and gerrymandering issues. Many states effectively require a driver’s license as ID to register to vote, with obtaining alternate forms of valid photo ID being much more difficult. Other states have “motor voter” programs, automatically registering eligible voters based on drivers license info, which are a very good idea overall in terms of health of democracy and ensuring access to the right to vote, but will skew voters toward those who drive. Many states that are all-in on voter disenfranchisement have also been locating polling locations in places that are harder to get to for those without a vehicle; or, since the US doesn’t make voting day a paid holiday or require employers to provide time off, those without cars may simply not have time on their day, given poor current public transit options, to get to a polling location to vote.
And that’s before you take into account the fact that building out better public and non-car transportation options, due to space issues noted in other comments above, requires first removing some space for car transportation and then construction can take a couple-few years, with overall transportation being harder in the mean time. So even though there might be strong support for the end state, people might struggle with the short term difficulties. (This not being able to support a better end state due to slightly worse short term state being too much difficulty is, of course, partly also a feature of the current economic precarity that those who would benefit from better public transit infrastructure are forced into by our current systems. It the shoe dilemma: not being able to afford the more comfortable, longer lasting shoes in the short term, and thus paying more while slowly hurting one’s feet through wearing poor quality shoes in the long term.)
posted by eviemath at 9:08 AM on September 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
do you think that people should be able to get around without a car. like, do you think fully functioning in society without a car should be meaningfully possible?
i ask, because as i see it every take on this issue has to be downstream of the response to that question. if the answer is "yes," you cannot lose sight of this; any scheme, including the status quo scheme, that results in people not being able to function without cars is a bad scheme. if the answer is "no," then you gotta own it.
you gotta fuckin' own it.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 9:31 AM on September 24, 2023 [5 favorites]
i ask, because as i see it every take on this issue has to be downstream of the response to that question. if the answer is "yes," you cannot lose sight of this; any scheme, including the status quo scheme, that results in people not being able to function without cars is a bad scheme. if the answer is "no," then you gotta own it.
you gotta fuckin' own it.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 9:31 AM on September 24, 2023 [5 favorites]
So how do we evaluate the level of support?
The usual ways: well-designed surveys, and combining results from multiple sources through some meta-study that attempts to balance out the weaknesses of each individual information source.
posted by eviemath at 11:22 AM on September 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
The usual ways: well-designed surveys, and combining results from multiple sources through some meta-study that attempts to balance out the weaknesses of each individual information source.
posted by eviemath at 11:22 AM on September 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
So how do we evaluate the level of support?
You keep trying things until you find *something* that confirms what you already think.
posted by Galvanic at 11:43 AM on September 24, 2023
You keep trying things until you find *something* that confirms what you already think.
posted by Galvanic at 11:43 AM on September 24, 2023
I just spent two years without a car, semi-voluntarily, in Ottawa. I kind of cheated because I have friends, an ex-spouse and family who could lend me wheels for special tasks. The experience was difficult. Public transport is slow and unreliable enough to make anything but short hops impractical. As a parent, I was sometimes unable to provide my children with middle class pursuits and extra-curricular learning. It isn't feasible to attend birthday parties or go to a science fair in the exurbs when the whole day is spent on public transport trying to shuttle back and forth. You can't buy cheap Kijiji furniture and goods unless a friend is willing to lend you their vehicle on short notice. You can't regularly visit friends and family who live 'only' a 20 minute drive away. Without a car, everything takes longer and is much further away. Life's contours shrink. Finally, even environmentally conscious friends eventually lose patience with your comparative immobility and insist that you get a car. I remain firmly in the anti-car camp. But I sympathise with ordinary parents who just want to live the promised North American lifestyle and give their kids the best chance possible in life. There doesn't appear to a solution to this contradiction except for taxing the idle billions stashed in the Cayman Islands and spending massively on public transport (amongst other things).
posted by SnowRottie at 4:54 PM on September 24, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by SnowRottie at 4:54 PM on September 24, 2023 [4 favorites]
From 2011 to 2015 the #1 spot was taken by a small car, the Toyota Corolla. People's tastes evolve over time
People's tastes run towards trucks and SUVs because the costs for gasoline are artificially low.
The costs of gasoline are definitely NOT artificially low in Australia, where the comparison was being made. But part of the shift from small cars like the Corolla to utility vehicles like the Ranger were that, at that time, diesel was much cheaper that petrol. It's now dearer than petrol, but there don't seem to be any signs of tastes shifting back. But I think there's a huge lag in new car buyers responding to fuel prices and not convinced the price of fuel really is that much of a factor anyway.
posted by dg at 5:09 PM on September 24, 2023
People's tastes run towards trucks and SUVs because the costs for gasoline are artificially low.
The costs of gasoline are definitely NOT artificially low in Australia, where the comparison was being made. But part of the shift from small cars like the Corolla to utility vehicles like the Ranger were that, at that time, diesel was much cheaper that petrol. It's now dearer than petrol, but there don't seem to be any signs of tastes shifting back. But I think there's a huge lag in new car buyers responding to fuel prices and not convinced the price of fuel really is that much of a factor anyway.
posted by dg at 5:09 PM on September 24, 2023
I am a car enthusiast, I guess. I even own a car that only ever gets used just for the pure pleasure of driving it. I'm also an avid fan of good public transport and have spent thousands of hours commuting by train when I could have driven back and forth. Why didn't I? Because of the cost of parking during weekdays in the CBD of a capital city and because of the soul-destroying nature of the part of that commute that involves being jammed into a several kilometre-long block of slow-moving (or not moving!) cars. Most people who did that trek on the train did so purely because of parking costs and it was common for people to at some point team up with someone who lived near them to drive into the city instead because the parking was more expensive than one return train fare, but cheaper than two.
I'm no expert in this area but, based on close to two decades of being a commuter and talking to many others facing the choice of how to make that commute (1.5 - 2 hrs door-to-door each way) less painful, I believe there are two parts to making people use public transport over their car. The first is convenience - when the trains I caught were increased from every 30 minutes to every 12 minutes, not only was there a massive increase in usage because the maximum wait was now 'acceptable', but everyone got a seat instead of dealing with crowded conditions that led to that specific train service being colloquially known as the 'Bombay Express'. The second is cost - when the cost of travelling by public transport is comparable to driving, it's a no-brainer for most people to choose the car. I no longer make that commute regularly, but the post-COVID world where many people now work remotely at least part of the time has led to very dramatic reductions in the cost of parking and significant reductions in congestion (because billions have been spent on widening roads over the last decade and now the demand they were built for doesn't exist), so more and more people are driving in and out of the city rather than using the train.
Public transport, as far as I can see, is pretty much impossible to make a profit on so governments need to stop trying to make it profitable by reducing services and other stupidities and look for ways to pay for it. A tax on car parking in cities would go a long way to both covering the cost and improving utilisation - if it's significant dearer to park your car in the city than catch the train, most people will take the train. Use the money from taxing car parking to increase services and you have the start of a real solution to the crisis of traffic in cities. Once you have that momentum building, you can start reclaiming roads for public transport with far less opposition. Yes, simplistic at best. Often the best ideas are the simplest. Most people don't travel into big cities for work, so a tax at the state government level wouldn't have the same negative consequences at election time as it would if imposed by the city itself.
posted by dg at 5:44 PM on September 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'm no expert in this area but, based on close to two decades of being a commuter and talking to many others facing the choice of how to make that commute (1.5 - 2 hrs door-to-door each way) less painful, I believe there are two parts to making people use public transport over their car. The first is convenience - when the trains I caught were increased from every 30 minutes to every 12 minutes, not only was there a massive increase in usage because the maximum wait was now 'acceptable', but everyone got a seat instead of dealing with crowded conditions that led to that specific train service being colloquially known as the 'Bombay Express'. The second is cost - when the cost of travelling by public transport is comparable to driving, it's a no-brainer for most people to choose the car. I no longer make that commute regularly, but the post-COVID world where many people now work remotely at least part of the time has led to very dramatic reductions in the cost of parking and significant reductions in congestion (because billions have been spent on widening roads over the last decade and now the demand they were built for doesn't exist), so more and more people are driving in and out of the city rather than using the train.
Public transport, as far as I can see, is pretty much impossible to make a profit on so governments need to stop trying to make it profitable by reducing services and other stupidities and look for ways to pay for it. A tax on car parking in cities would go a long way to both covering the cost and improving utilisation - if it's significant dearer to park your car in the city than catch the train, most people will take the train. Use the money from taxing car parking to increase services and you have the start of a real solution to the crisis of traffic in cities. Once you have that momentum building, you can start reclaiming roads for public transport with far less opposition. Yes, simplistic at best. Often the best ideas are the simplest. Most people don't travel into big cities for work, so a tax at the state government level wouldn't have the same negative consequences at election time as it would if imposed by the city itself.
posted by dg at 5:44 PM on September 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
There doesn't appear to a solution to this contradiction except for taxing the idle billions stashed in the Cayman Islands and spending massively on public transport (amongst other things).The big thing would be removing all of the zoning rules designed to encourage car ownership. Transit and biking do poorly if you aren't allowed to build dense housing, required to pay for parking spots at every business, etc.
posted by adamsc at 6:00 PM on September 24, 2023 [4 favorites]
Galvanic, I'll throw you a bone here. "You keep trying things until you find *something* that confirms what you already think" is a caricature but not a completely wrong description of my beliefs here, because transit policy seems to me to be a space where pop politics does not match the constraints of physical reality. Just like people will vote ad infinitum to lower taxes while increasing services, people who only know the car will try to vote car-centric infra into solving problems it fundamentally can't. There are many topics in which blue-sky plebiscites are a bad idea and this is one.
Transit is a highly constrained, highly technical problem with myriad pitfalls involving short-term thinking and infrastructure death spirals. (see "just one more lane bro" and "no one takes the bus (that's stuck in traffic behind dozens of private cars)") To some extent, technocrats have to present the public with a choice between solutions which will work.
A concrete example: my neighborhood's high street used to be a morass of cars, which isn't conducive to the relaxed window-shopping + cafe culture it wanted and was so close to having. So we experimented for years with traffic calming measures, all of which bent over backwards to accommodate people who want to drive and park literally everywhere. The result is an excellent solution for the constraints. Precisely an example of "keep trying" until you find a compromise which solves the problem for everyone instead of only those happy with the Autos Über Alles status quo.
posted by daveliepmann at 12:40 AM on September 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
Transit is a highly constrained, highly technical problem with myriad pitfalls involving short-term thinking and infrastructure death spirals. (see "just one more lane bro" and "no one takes the bus (that's stuck in traffic behind dozens of private cars)") To some extent, technocrats have to present the public with a choice between solutions which will work.
A concrete example: my neighborhood's high street used to be a morass of cars, which isn't conducive to the relaxed window-shopping + cafe culture it wanted and was so close to having. So we experimented for years with traffic calming measures, all of which bent over backwards to accommodate people who want to drive and park literally everywhere. The result is an excellent solution for the constraints. Precisely an example of "keep trying" until you find a compromise which solves the problem for everyone instead of only those happy with the Autos Über Alles status quo.
posted by daveliepmann at 12:40 AM on September 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
IMO, now is the perfect time for the US to do some real pushback on driving culture. Have you driven lately? Everyone is looking at their phones, all the time. Doesn't matter which city, what type of car - bro trucks drivers are staring at their phones, same as electric car drivers. Freeway/city streets, suburbia. It's all the same. Doesn't matter that it's against the law in most of the places either. Nobody is interested in driving as a mindful activity anymore. It's obviously a burden, which playing on your phone alleviates.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:22 AM on September 25, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:22 AM on September 25, 2023 [5 favorites]
But I think there's a huge lag in new car buyers responding to fuel prices and not convinced the price of fuel really is that much of a factor anyway.
It's not. Fuel is a tiny factor in most people's budgets. It's actually far less than the payment on a car on a monthly basis. Also, most cars are locked into the 20-40 mph range, so the spread is not very wide from the most fuel-efficient small car vs more practical models.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:26 AM on September 25, 2023
It's not. Fuel is a tiny factor in most people's budgets. It's actually far less than the payment on a car on a monthly basis. Also, most cars are locked into the 20-40 mph range, so the spread is not very wide from the most fuel-efficient small car vs more practical models.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:26 AM on September 25, 2023
Galvanic, I'll throw you a bone here.
Thanks! I appreciate it. I'm going to reply a bit out of order here and I apologize, but it made sense to me.
Transit is a highly constrained, highly technical problem with myriad pitfalls
So are enormous number of other policy issues. Arguing that logic is taking the vast majority of them out of the voters hands because the voters Just Can't Handle It.
To some extent, technocrats have to present the public with a choice between solutions which will work
Which they think will work. The record of technocrats and their solutions is not actually that great. Robert Moses made similar arguments to yours -- let the technocrats figure it out. "The Best and the Brightest" got us horribly mired in Vietnam. The CDC got things pretty badly wrong for a good chunk of early COVID (light years better than the f&*&*(Y anti-vaxxers, but they screwed up how COVID was transmitted really badly)
Just like people will vote ad infinitum to lower taxes while increasing services
That's a common trope, but it's not actually true. Lowering taxes to a certain extent, but the US discretionary budget (ie, all the services you're talking about excepting Medicare & Social Security) has been flat for quite a long time (excepting the COVID bump).
A concrete example
Your example is actually how I would like things to work -- taking into account people's genuine preferences for cars while still achieving something tangible around community. So I don't think that's a counterpoint to what I was saying, which was that much of the anti-car discussion is extreme and dishonest in its analyses.
posted by Galvanic at 12:30 PM on September 25, 2023
Thanks! I appreciate it. I'm going to reply a bit out of order here and I apologize, but it made sense to me.
Transit is a highly constrained, highly technical problem with myriad pitfalls
So are enormous number of other policy issues. Arguing that logic is taking the vast majority of them out of the voters hands because the voters Just Can't Handle It.
To some extent, technocrats have to present the public with a choice between solutions which will work
Which they think will work. The record of technocrats and their solutions is not actually that great. Robert Moses made similar arguments to yours -- let the technocrats figure it out. "The Best and the Brightest" got us horribly mired in Vietnam. The CDC got things pretty badly wrong for a good chunk of early COVID (light years better than the f&*&*(Y anti-vaxxers, but they screwed up how COVID was transmitted really badly)
Just like people will vote ad infinitum to lower taxes while increasing services
That's a common trope, but it's not actually true. Lowering taxes to a certain extent, but the US discretionary budget (ie, all the services you're talking about excepting Medicare & Social Security) has been flat for quite a long time (excepting the COVID bump).
A concrete example
Your example is actually how I would like things to work -- taking into account people's genuine preferences for cars while still achieving something tangible around community. So I don't think that's a counterpoint to what I was saying, which was that much of the anti-car discussion is extreme and dishonest in its analyses.
posted by Galvanic at 12:30 PM on September 25, 2023
I admit that a technocratic solution has to be right to be good. In this case, I think the technocratic understanding around transit is right: cars are a dead-end solution so despite voter enthusiasm they must be de-prioritized, such as in my example. So I guess we're in agreement that car owners really like their right to drive their cars; we just come to opposite conclusions about what to do about it?
Maybe I should have also explained that earlier experiments (google "green dots Bergmannstraße") in that example all failed because they tried to preserve space for cars. The design for cars only works now because of extremely narrow lanes and turning radii, speed bumps, and removing a travel direction.
posted by daveliepmann at 1:19 PM on September 25, 2023
Maybe I should have also explained that earlier experiments (google "green dots Bergmannstraße") in that example all failed because they tried to preserve space for cars. The design for cars only works now because of extremely narrow lanes and turning radii, speed bumps, and removing a travel direction.
posted by daveliepmann at 1:19 PM on September 25, 2023
Of course there's also that other technocratic transit orthodoxy, national standards for road design, which are basically a slurry of distilled car culture. Both US and German laws prioritize speed and throughput of car traffic over all else. Attempts to change this trigger, of course, reactionary doubling-down.
posted by daveliepmann at 1:35 PM on September 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by daveliepmann at 1:35 PM on September 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
Has any country tried to say "climate change concerns supersede evinced voter preference for cars" yet?
posted by Selena777 at 1:45 PM on September 25, 2023
posted by Selena777 at 1:45 PM on September 25, 2023
Climate change is one of the weakest reasons to reject car culture, so that would be a little weird. Does it merit more than a brief mention in the FPP video?
posted by daveliepmann at 1:54 PM on September 25, 2023
posted by daveliepmann at 1:54 PM on September 25, 2023
reactionary doubling-down.
I’ll get back to other comments in a bit but the patheticness of this deserves an immediate answer. This is people saying what they want and that deserves respect even if you disagree. This is their preference, this is a republic, and you need to treat voters with respect. Because otherwise Trump will do it for you, and you’ll wonder what happened.
posted by Galvanic at 1:55 PM on September 25, 2023
I’ll get back to other comments in a bit but the patheticness of this deserves an immediate answer. This is people saying what they want and that deserves respect even if you disagree. This is their preference, this is a republic, and you need to treat voters with respect. Because otherwise Trump will do it for you, and you’ll wonder what happened.
posted by Galvanic at 1:55 PM on September 25, 2023
That doesn't hold water if the car voters are a minority with outsized power, which they are, especially as a suburban voting block dominating the city center that wants to be walkable. Also I ain't in the US, bro! Hashtag other places exist.
posted by daveliepmann at 2:01 PM on September 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by daveliepmann at 2:01 PM on September 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
Scroll to "Wahlkreisergebnisse" in these election results and see the "donut": an actual urban center overwhelmingly voted RRG (social-democrat, left, green – the bike lane / public transit / walkability parties). In what world is it just for the outer ring of suburbia get to override that and pave highways through the center of town? It's madness! I know it's normal in your benighted continent, nevertheless, it's stark raving madness! Toronto conservatives gerrymandered their city borders intentionally this way, too. It's just horrible and you'll have a hard time convincing me this pattern is ever a good application of democracy.
posted by daveliepmann at 2:12 PM on September 25, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by daveliepmann at 2:12 PM on September 25, 2023 [2 favorites]
@daveliepmann
Thanks for proving my point about anti-car advocates finding a way to hand wave out actual voter preferences for cars, in this case by asserting that only some voters should count, not others.
posted by Galvanic at 3:12 PM on September 25, 2023
Thanks for proving my point about anti-car advocates finding a way to hand wave out actual voter preferences for cars, in this case by asserting that only some voters should count, not others.
posted by Galvanic at 3:12 PM on September 25, 2023
Galvanic. Buddy. Dude. My very first words in this thread were that I enjoy driving. The entire FPP is about why car enthusiasts can and should be opposed to car dependency. Are you just that dense, or are you intentionally skewing what folks, including myself, are saying? Try engaging with the actual arguments in the FPP and that your fellow mefites are making, rather than disrupting the discussion with snide remarks.
posted by eviemath at 5:48 PM on September 25, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 5:48 PM on September 25, 2023 [2 favorites]
Has any country tried to say "climate change concerns supersede evinced voter preference for cars" yet?
Country? No, but those living on the Marshall Islands might have opinions.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 9:25 PM on September 25, 2023
Country? No, but those living on the Marshall Islands might have opinions.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 9:25 PM on September 25, 2023
why public transit, even more idealized public transit, doesn't work for everyone. And I think that once again these
Public transit doesn't work for everyone but, then again, neither does driving. Two of the four adults in my house cannot drive ever for medical reasons. Both also have disabilities such that they are completely reliant on public transit; they cannot cycle or walk long distances. Public transit isn't a choice for them. It's the only way they can get around.
There are a lot of people in their position, including almost everyone at one point in their lives - as children and/or as seniors.
Not having public transit means denying independence and transportation to all of these people. It's not a choice; it's an essential and needs to be recognized as that.
posted by jb at 10:24 PM on September 25, 2023 [5 favorites]
Public transit doesn't work for everyone but, then again, neither does driving. Two of the four adults in my house cannot drive ever for medical reasons. Both also have disabilities such that they are completely reliant on public transit; they cannot cycle or walk long distances. Public transit isn't a choice for them. It's the only way they can get around.
There are a lot of people in their position, including almost everyone at one point in their lives - as children and/or as seniors.
Not having public transit means denying independence and transportation to all of these people. It's not a choice; it's an essential and needs to be recognized as that.
posted by jb at 10:24 PM on September 25, 2023 [5 favorites]
One area of car independence where coordinated effort is necessary to counteract pernicious incentives is school drop-off, so I've been glad to track efforts to eliminate "parent taxis" (driving kids to (pre-)school). Paris is way ahead of the curve with their "school streets", where they open surrounding streets to non-car uses permanently. As usual Germany is moving slowly yet there's at least some effort, like this recent experiment in Bonn where they forbid cars in the morning.
posted by daveliepmann at 12:50 AM on September 26, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by daveliepmann at 12:50 AM on September 26, 2023 [3 favorites]
Galvanic: The article recognizes that people prefer cars. The comment thread not so much.
The FPP is a video, not an article. Why don't you take a moment to watch it, consider the points that the author makes and where he's coming from as a guy who's loved cars and driving since he was a kid, and then come back and comment here if the spirit moves you? It's about 21 minutes long; it won't take very much time.
If you do, please consider in particular that a guy who loves cars so much that he owns a dozen of them, buys them compulsively, and created a YouTube channel just to talk about how much he loves driving cool cars, cannot be fairly characterized as "anti-car", but anti-car dependency — which is a very different thing.
posted by skoosh at 6:40 AM on September 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
The FPP is a video, not an article. Why don't you take a moment to watch it, consider the points that the author makes and where he's coming from as a guy who's loved cars and driving since he was a kid, and then come back and comment here if the spirit moves you? It's about 21 minutes long; it won't take very much time.
If you do, please consider in particular that a guy who loves cars so much that he owns a dozen of them, buys them compulsively, and created a YouTube channel just to talk about how much he loves driving cool cars, cannot be fairly characterized as "anti-car", but anti-car dependency — which is a very different thing.
posted by skoosh at 6:40 AM on September 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
it doesn't work when we know marginal improvements to non-car infra don't get people out of their cars.
do you think that people should be able to get around without a car. like, do you think fully functioning in society without a car should be meaningfully possible?
So these are two different calls for public transportation increases, and I'm going to say that even though they seem to be on the same side, they're really, really not, and that the first is actually counterproductive to the second.
The first is essentially saying: even if we improve public transportation and non-car infrastructure, it's a failure if people don't stop driving. Even if many people's lives are significantly improved and their ability to travel is increased, it's still a failure if we don't significantly lower the amount of people using cars.
The second is saying: it should be possible to live without cars, and people who want to live without cars should have the ability to do so; thus, meaningful non-car infrastructure should exist such that people can get around as they need to without cars. In this scenario, if we improve public transportation, and non-car infrastructure, and people's choices of transportation are improved, it's a success, even if a significant number of people still prefer to use cars.
As a car-user, I am not only much more sympathetic to the latter, I am in full agreement with the latter. That says that people should be allowed to transport themselves in the manner best suited to them, and should have the option to do so without being forced or unduly coerced into a situation that doesn't work for them. I would be happy to vote for that and fund transportation projects that seek to accomplish that out of public funds and increased tax levies.
And there are a lot of ways that public transportation can be improved, right now, even without trying to remove car space. We could fund all-hours inter-city bus transportation, which most cities do not currently do - even their inter-city lines usually close down around 11PM or midnight. We could lower the price of public transportation and increase its cleanliness, which folks have mentioned above as a deterrent to use, by hiring people to keep it clean and increasing the fleets to ensure regular servicing and cleaning of vehicles. We could hire bathroom maintenance staff so that public bathrooms could be opened again. We could turn existing parking lots at park-and-rides at train stations into above-ground parking garages (which wouldn't require additional physical space, just money and time), so that travel capacity could be increased. We could add trains, so that they aren't just centered around expected work hours but run throughout the day, allowing people to utilize that transportation for short shopping trips and pleasure trips as well as just commutes. There are so many things that could be done just for a start, and these are just the things I thought up in the five minutes of writing this comment. Why is that not something we can move together on?
posted by corb at 6:44 AM on September 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
do you think that people should be able to get around without a car. like, do you think fully functioning in society without a car should be meaningfully possible?
So these are two different calls for public transportation increases, and I'm going to say that even though they seem to be on the same side, they're really, really not, and that the first is actually counterproductive to the second.
The first is essentially saying: even if we improve public transportation and non-car infrastructure, it's a failure if people don't stop driving. Even if many people's lives are significantly improved and their ability to travel is increased, it's still a failure if we don't significantly lower the amount of people using cars.
The second is saying: it should be possible to live without cars, and people who want to live without cars should have the ability to do so; thus, meaningful non-car infrastructure should exist such that people can get around as they need to without cars. In this scenario, if we improve public transportation, and non-car infrastructure, and people's choices of transportation are improved, it's a success, even if a significant number of people still prefer to use cars.
As a car-user, I am not only much more sympathetic to the latter, I am in full agreement with the latter. That says that people should be allowed to transport themselves in the manner best suited to them, and should have the option to do so without being forced or unduly coerced into a situation that doesn't work for them. I would be happy to vote for that and fund transportation projects that seek to accomplish that out of public funds and increased tax levies.
And there are a lot of ways that public transportation can be improved, right now, even without trying to remove car space. We could fund all-hours inter-city bus transportation, which most cities do not currently do - even their inter-city lines usually close down around 11PM or midnight. We could lower the price of public transportation and increase its cleanliness, which folks have mentioned above as a deterrent to use, by hiring people to keep it clean and increasing the fleets to ensure regular servicing and cleaning of vehicles. We could hire bathroom maintenance staff so that public bathrooms could be opened again. We could turn existing parking lots at park-and-rides at train stations into above-ground parking garages (which wouldn't require additional physical space, just money and time), so that travel capacity could be increased. We could add trains, so that they aren't just centered around expected work hours but run throughout the day, allowing people to utilize that transportation for short shopping trips and pleasure trips as well as just commutes. There are so many things that could be done just for a start, and these are just the things I thought up in the five minutes of writing this comment. Why is that not something we can move together on?
posted by corb at 6:44 AM on September 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
I am trying so hard to keep working for safer streets but threads like this are absolutely demoralizing. Why do I fucking bother if saying something as simple as 'the fewer people who drive because they have to, the better it is for the drivers who remain' is so controversial?
I can't afford to drive to work and pay $20 a day for parking, so my options are riding my bike or taking CTA. Riding my bike takes 45 min each way; CTA 75+ min each way. So most of the time I ride my bike, and I deserve to be able to get to work without dying. The only way to do that is build better infrastructure that physically protects me from drivers and the only way to do THAT is to take something away from cars - either parking or a driving lane or sometimes both.
Or, if you want me to not bike to work because you have some misguided perception that I'm an elitist hipster who secretly wants drivers to be miserable, you need to improve transit. And you know why my transit commute is so long? Because the bus has to be in the same lanes of traffic as all the individual people in their cars creating congestion. The only way to fix that is to build dedicated bus lanes which, again, takes either parking or driving lanes away from cars.
And this idea that everyone who drives does it because they love it, not because there is no other option is complete bullshit. This has been demonstrated a million times over by how many people say they like working from home because there's no commute.
There is no such thing as free choice when the pros and cons of any option are driven almost entirely by infrastructure and policy. I traveled to see my family in suburban Houston about a week and a half ago. I have little interest in driving, especially when I'm on vacation, especially when doing so means paying more money. But the infrastructure and built environment in that city is such that I had no choice but to rent a car. So if that influenced my one-time choice, why is it crazy to suggest that the same thing influences all of the big and small choices of all the residents of that city? If induced demand is fake, are you saying no one ever looks at the potential commute time when deciding what areas to live in? And then sure, that commute from Sugar Land to wherever doesn't look so bad since they added more lanes to 59/69, but in 5 or 10 years when thousands more people have made the same calculus, what does that mean for my commute? Sure, it's a frog in a pot of boiling water in that the change is so incremental it almost seems like it was always that way. But it is what happens.
I own a car. I used to live in Houston myself, and now I'm in Chicago where lots of people own cars. I don't know how anyone can look at either of those cities and say "yep, working great, people definitely enjoy this" as they are stuck in school drop off gridlock honking at each other or sitting in stop and go traffic in the blazing sun alongside 12 lanes of other bored, angry, or tired commuters.
posted by misskaz at 8:36 AM on September 26, 2023 [10 favorites]
I can't afford to drive to work and pay $20 a day for parking, so my options are riding my bike or taking CTA. Riding my bike takes 45 min each way; CTA 75+ min each way. So most of the time I ride my bike, and I deserve to be able to get to work without dying. The only way to do that is build better infrastructure that physically protects me from drivers and the only way to do THAT is to take something away from cars - either parking or a driving lane or sometimes both.
Or, if you want me to not bike to work because you have some misguided perception that I'm an elitist hipster who secretly wants drivers to be miserable, you need to improve transit. And you know why my transit commute is so long? Because the bus has to be in the same lanes of traffic as all the individual people in their cars creating congestion. The only way to fix that is to build dedicated bus lanes which, again, takes either parking or driving lanes away from cars.
And this idea that everyone who drives does it because they love it, not because there is no other option is complete bullshit. This has been demonstrated a million times over by how many people say they like working from home because there's no commute.
There is no such thing as free choice when the pros and cons of any option are driven almost entirely by infrastructure and policy. I traveled to see my family in suburban Houston about a week and a half ago. I have little interest in driving, especially when I'm on vacation, especially when doing so means paying more money. But the infrastructure and built environment in that city is such that I had no choice but to rent a car. So if that influenced my one-time choice, why is it crazy to suggest that the same thing influences all of the big and small choices of all the residents of that city? If induced demand is fake, are you saying no one ever looks at the potential commute time when deciding what areas to live in? And then sure, that commute from Sugar Land to wherever doesn't look so bad since they added more lanes to 59/69, but in 5 or 10 years when thousands more people have made the same calculus, what does that mean for my commute? Sure, it's a frog in a pot of boiling water in that the change is so incremental it almost seems like it was always that way. But it is what happens.
I own a car. I used to live in Houston myself, and now I'm in Chicago where lots of people own cars. I don't know how anyone can look at either of those cities and say "yep, working great, people definitely enjoy this" as they are stuck in school drop off gridlock honking at each other or sitting in stop and go traffic in the blazing sun alongside 12 lanes of other bored, angry, or tired commuters.
posted by misskaz at 8:36 AM on September 26, 2023 [10 favorites]
Are you just that dense, or are you intentionally skewing what folks, including myself, are saying?
I'm -- repeatedly -- pointing out that the language that anti-car advocates is framed in a way that cuts off the voices of anyone who disagrees with them. Rather than people preferring to use cars, they're "car dependent" because of "car culture" (which is a "death cult" that has "traffic violence" rather than accidents). When more roads appear and people use them, that's not real, it's "induced demand" (echoing nothing so much as Marxian "false consciousness"). It's the language of a position that can't win its argument by actually convincing people not to like cars so instead it tries to do in framing what it can't do in reality.
The first is essentially saying: even if we improve public transportation and non-car infrastructure, it's a failure if people don't stop driving. Even if many people's lives are significantly improved and their ability to travel is increased, it's still a failure if we don't significantly lower the amount of people using cars.
The second is saying: it should be possible to live without cars, and people who want to live without cars should have the ability to do so; thus, meaningful non-car infrastructure should exist such that people can get around as they need to without cars. In this scenario, if we improve public transportation, and non-car infrastructure, and people's choices of transportation are improved, it's a success, even if a significant number of people still prefer to use cars.
As a car-user, I am not only much more sympathetic to the latter, I am in full agreement with the latter. That says that people should be allowed to transport themselves in the manner best suited to them, and should have the option to do so without being forced or unduly coerced into a situation that doesn't work for them. I would be happy to vote for that and fund transportation projects that seek to accomplish that out of public funds and increased tax levies.
Yep, this is an excellent way to put it.
posted by Galvanic at 8:40 AM on September 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'm -- repeatedly -- pointing out that the language that anti-car advocates is framed in a way that cuts off the voices of anyone who disagrees with them. Rather than people preferring to use cars, they're "car dependent" because of "car culture" (which is a "death cult" that has "traffic violence" rather than accidents). When more roads appear and people use them, that's not real, it's "induced demand" (echoing nothing so much as Marxian "false consciousness"). It's the language of a position that can't win its argument by actually convincing people not to like cars so instead it tries to do in framing what it can't do in reality.
The first is essentially saying: even if we improve public transportation and non-car infrastructure, it's a failure if people don't stop driving. Even if many people's lives are significantly improved and their ability to travel is increased, it's still a failure if we don't significantly lower the amount of people using cars.
The second is saying: it should be possible to live without cars, and people who want to live without cars should have the ability to do so; thus, meaningful non-car infrastructure should exist such that people can get around as they need to without cars. In this scenario, if we improve public transportation, and non-car infrastructure, and people's choices of transportation are improved, it's a success, even if a significant number of people still prefer to use cars.
As a car-user, I am not only much more sympathetic to the latter, I am in full agreement with the latter. That says that people should be allowed to transport themselves in the manner best suited to them, and should have the option to do so without being forced or unduly coerced into a situation that doesn't work for them. I would be happy to vote for that and fund transportation projects that seek to accomplish that out of public funds and increased tax levies.
Yep, this is an excellent way to put it.
posted by Galvanic at 8:40 AM on September 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
i am car dependent because the infrastructure for anything not driving is incredibly trash for most trips, and any attempt to get the infrastructure to not be incredibly trash is immediately blocked by shop operators in downtown-ish strips who think that losing six parking spaces will kill their business and refuse to acknowledge that 80% of their customers come on foot.
it is not hateful to acknowledge that a ton of people are in my same situation. car. dependent. not. by. choice. completely bizarre that you claim that honestly stating that is somehow hateful.
do you think that it should be possible to have a full life without a car.
if yes, plz adjust your ideas to reflect that. if no, please fuckin’ own it. if you can’t say yes or no and you can’t own your response, you are not seriously participating in any conversation but instead just doing troll shit.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:49 AM on September 26, 2023 [7 favorites]
it is not hateful to acknowledge that a ton of people are in my same situation. car. dependent. not. by. choice. completely bizarre that you claim that honestly stating that is somehow hateful.
do you think that it should be possible to have a full life without a car.
if yes, plz adjust your ideas to reflect that. if no, please fuckin’ own it. if you can’t say yes or no and you can’t own your response, you are not seriously participating in any conversation but instead just doing troll shit.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:49 AM on September 26, 2023 [7 favorites]
corb, I agree on most of your points (though not more parking at train stations, that just cements (literally) car dependence — perhaps you meant to write "more housing"?). Yet in my city, in my neighborhood, the goal can't be just to increase modal share of transit, walking and cycling. They're already the majority. The issue remains that cars — again, the minority along any axis — absolutely dominate public space, to great harm to everyone.
The goal is to reduce those harms, to make more fair the distribution of public money and space, and to improve the transit experience of the majority.
Any honest attempt to engage with that exposes the fantasy that your entire argument rests upon: that meaningful improvements to non-car transit can be made without taking away from cars. This is 101-level stuff you simply have to acknowledge to participate in these discussions: bus/tram service is hamstrung without dedicated lanes because cars expand like a gas; most people aren't comfortable riding a bicycle in traffic or even in unprotected lanes so you need dedicated lanes; the existing status quo is incredibly hostile to anything but people driving; the geometric reality of cars makes them unsuitable for the majority of people in dense places. The conclusion that we must take space from cars naturally falls out of acknowledging these basic facts. And then, yes, the scales fall from your eyes as you realize the extent that cars subjugate everything that is not a car.
posted by daveliepmann at 9:06 AM on September 26, 2023 [3 favorites]
The goal is to reduce those harms, to make more fair the distribution of public money and space, and to improve the transit experience of the majority.
Any honest attempt to engage with that exposes the fantasy that your entire argument rests upon: that meaningful improvements to non-car transit can be made without taking away from cars. This is 101-level stuff you simply have to acknowledge to participate in these discussions: bus/tram service is hamstrung without dedicated lanes because cars expand like a gas; most people aren't comfortable riding a bicycle in traffic or even in unprotected lanes so you need dedicated lanes; the existing status quo is incredibly hostile to anything but people driving; the geometric reality of cars makes them unsuitable for the majority of people in dense places. The conclusion that we must take space from cars naturally falls out of acknowledging these basic facts. And then, yes, the scales fall from your eyes as you realize the extent that cars subjugate everything that is not a car.
posted by daveliepmann at 9:06 AM on September 26, 2023 [3 favorites]
I don't know how anyone can look at either of those cities and say "yep, working great, people definitely enjoy this" as they are stuck in school drop off gridlock honking at each other or sitting in stop and go traffic in the blazing sun alongside 12 lanes of other bored, angry, or tired commuters.
I think that it's not so much about people enjoying the physicality of driving, so much as the economics of current post-capitalist American life incentivizing people to live and work far away from each other. Nearly everyone would prefer a shorter commute. Why, then, do so many people live so far away from work? Because they can't afford a home closer to their work on the pay they receive. I experienced this myself, looking for places. I would have preferred to live closer to the city - but couldn't afford it on my salary, so needed to live an hour and a half outside the city - and thus, even if I hadn't had other reasons to prefer a car, absolutely needed one to get around and needed one to get to work. It's not about the Joy Of Driving, so much as wanting to be able to afford life for your family.
This problem is fundamentally not one that can be fixed with getting people out of their cars and into mass transit alone. When people are living - as they often do in my area - between 40 and 90 miles away from their workplace, it is less and less likely that a mass system of *anything* will be able to transport them all to the same location. That's actually why I suggested increasing parking garages at park-and-rides, because I think often for low-density areas, the best solution is a mixed-transit solution, where people drive to a mass transit station and then take mass transit to the denser areas.
Because we do live in a world that encompasses both dense and nondense areas, and people frequently need to travel from one to the other, especially in the US. We can certainly say that it was poor planning half a century ago that created these cities and structures, suburbs and exurbs, but we're here now. These houses and towns and people are here now.
you need to improve transit. And you know why my transit commute is so long? Because the bus has to be in the same lanes of traffic as all the individual people in their cars creating congestion. The only way to fix that is to build dedicated bus lanes which, again, takes either parking or driving lanes away from cars.
I think I want to ask you to think about some of your perceptions and assumptions here, because I find them both relatable and enlightening. You look at the road, and accurately note that it's congested. But you go further than that - you assign blame. And you assign it to "the individual people in their cars creating congestion" But that's not a fact, that's a perception. Some car drivers might well say, "Ah, it's so congested because those lousy buses are awful at merging. For me, I say, "It's so congested because the lousy bosses aren't paying their workers enough to live in the city."
And I would say that there are, in fact, other ways to fix that, that don't involve workers fighting each other over their method of transportation, but involve them uniting with each other against the people who would happily feed them into a meat grinder if it made them an extra buck. But you know, I'm just a dirty anarchist, so you can safely ignore my wild rantings, I'm sure.
posted by corb at 10:38 AM on September 26, 2023
I think that it's not so much about people enjoying the physicality of driving, so much as the economics of current post-capitalist American life incentivizing people to live and work far away from each other. Nearly everyone would prefer a shorter commute. Why, then, do so many people live so far away from work? Because they can't afford a home closer to their work on the pay they receive. I experienced this myself, looking for places. I would have preferred to live closer to the city - but couldn't afford it on my salary, so needed to live an hour and a half outside the city - and thus, even if I hadn't had other reasons to prefer a car, absolutely needed one to get around and needed one to get to work. It's not about the Joy Of Driving, so much as wanting to be able to afford life for your family.
This problem is fundamentally not one that can be fixed with getting people out of their cars and into mass transit alone. When people are living - as they often do in my area - between 40 and 90 miles away from their workplace, it is less and less likely that a mass system of *anything* will be able to transport them all to the same location. That's actually why I suggested increasing parking garages at park-and-rides, because I think often for low-density areas, the best solution is a mixed-transit solution, where people drive to a mass transit station and then take mass transit to the denser areas.
Because we do live in a world that encompasses both dense and nondense areas, and people frequently need to travel from one to the other, especially in the US. We can certainly say that it was poor planning half a century ago that created these cities and structures, suburbs and exurbs, but we're here now. These houses and towns and people are here now.
you need to improve transit. And you know why my transit commute is so long? Because the bus has to be in the same lanes of traffic as all the individual people in their cars creating congestion. The only way to fix that is to build dedicated bus lanes which, again, takes either parking or driving lanes away from cars.
I think I want to ask you to think about some of your perceptions and assumptions here, because I find them both relatable and enlightening. You look at the road, and accurately note that it's congested. But you go further than that - you assign blame. And you assign it to "the individual people in their cars creating congestion" But that's not a fact, that's a perception. Some car drivers might well say, "Ah, it's so congested because those lousy buses are awful at merging. For me, I say, "It's so congested because the lousy bosses aren't paying their workers enough to live in the city."
And I would say that there are, in fact, other ways to fix that, that don't involve workers fighting each other over their method of transportation, but involve them uniting with each other against the people who would happily feed them into a meat grinder if it made them an extra buck. But you know, I'm just a dirty anarchist, so you can safely ignore my wild rantings, I'm sure.
posted by corb at 10:38 AM on September 26, 2023
Galvanic, I'm mildly sympathetic to Yglesias-style "the result of induced demand is good in that it represents fulfilled desire", nevertheless, you're arguing a straw man. I'm sure r/fuckcars commenters, being in a social context of agreement, don't always steelman the argument either, but you should.
Induced demand is an observed phenomenon. What to do about it is a political question, that is, it depends on tradeoffs and allocation of values. I look at induced demand and say, on the plus side, this represents economic growth and people happy to get to where they want to go. I also notice its drawbacks, including the myriad and grim externalities detailed above, but most pertinently a ratcheting up of car dependency as other modalities are crowded out by one more lane, bro, and build me some more parking.
Notice that I'm completely conceding your main point, that people will gravitate to cars, especially in the absence of high-quality alternatives. Which are lacking literally across all of north america, NYC included. The question remains whether to respond naively to that desire, or to think long-term and build out those alternatives.
posted by daveliepmann at 11:10 AM on September 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
Induced demand is an observed phenomenon. What to do about it is a political question, that is, it depends on tradeoffs and allocation of values. I look at induced demand and say, on the plus side, this represents economic growth and people happy to get to where they want to go. I also notice its drawbacks, including the myriad and grim externalities detailed above, but most pertinently a ratcheting up of car dependency as other modalities are crowded out by one more lane, bro, and build me some more parking.
Notice that I'm completely conceding your main point, that people will gravitate to cars, especially in the absence of high-quality alternatives. Which are lacking literally across all of north america, NYC included. The question remains whether to respond naively to that desire, or to think long-term and build out those alternatives.
posted by daveliepmann at 11:10 AM on September 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
But you know, I'm just a dirty anarchist, so you can safely ignore my wild rantings, I'm sure.
corb, I literally favorited your comment before typing mine because I liked it. My comment was a response to the thread as a whole not to you. It's disappointing that you're painting me as someone who would write you off like that.
I am all for looking even farther up the layers of systems that have created the circumstances we're in now. I agree that it's criminal that people have to live so far away to afford housing. I also think it's criminal that living so far away means spending so much on transportation. I think that even less dense areas of cities (like the neighborhood I live in! I have a single family house with a yard; this is a typical street in my neighborhood) need functioning transit/alternative mobility regardless of whether the reason people live there is income or preference.
When I said "causing congestion" I am not assigning blame to the drivers but describing the actual physics of what happens when every person takes up 100 square feet on the road, vs a half or a quarter or a tenth of that if they are siting on a bus. There is only so much room on the roads and people are driving more and more. I worry if we don't get ahead of that and provide alternatives we are going to end up (or might already be) in a doom spiral. I apologize that my choice of wording made it seem like I am actively hating on all those people who are just making the best choices they can with what's in front of them. I just want to change what those choices are.
posted by misskaz at 2:02 PM on September 26, 2023 [4 favorites]
corb, I literally favorited your comment before typing mine because I liked it. My comment was a response to the thread as a whole not to you. It's disappointing that you're painting me as someone who would write you off like that.
I am all for looking even farther up the layers of systems that have created the circumstances we're in now. I agree that it's criminal that people have to live so far away to afford housing. I also think it's criminal that living so far away means spending so much on transportation. I think that even less dense areas of cities (like the neighborhood I live in! I have a single family house with a yard; this is a typical street in my neighborhood) need functioning transit/alternative mobility regardless of whether the reason people live there is income or preference.
When I said "causing congestion" I am not assigning blame to the drivers but describing the actual physics of what happens when every person takes up 100 square feet on the road, vs a half or a quarter or a tenth of that if they are siting on a bus. There is only so much room on the roads and people are driving more and more. I worry if we don't get ahead of that and provide alternatives we are going to end up (or might already be) in a doom spiral. I apologize that my choice of wording made it seem like I am actively hating on all those people who are just making the best choices they can with what's in front of them. I just want to change what those choices are.
posted by misskaz at 2:02 PM on September 26, 2023 [4 favorites]
I think often for low-density areas, the best solution is a mixed-transit solution, where people drive to a mass transit station and then take mass transit to the denser areas.
This is 100% the case in the real world where we have built enormous amounts of housing that is spread widely and often far away from almost all jobs. In a perfect world, we would never have built all those suburbs without mandating the safe-for-all-modes transport infrastructure that would allow people in the suburbs to live comfortably without multiple cars per household because that's the only reasonable way to get anywhere. But we don't live in a perfect world, we live in the world we have and compromise is the only way forward.
Where I live, we have pretty good public transport in and close to the centre of the nearby big city, but little or none outside that. We also have many thousands of people who need to get into the city every day who can only afford to live in the outer suburbs. The only feasible way to resolve that issue in the real world is transport hubs that are accessible by car from the suburbs and that keep cars out of the city where there is little parking and what exists is too expensive. In most cities, the cost of increasing the bandwidth of roads is insanely expensive, so we need to build those hubs where land is cheap and it's relatively easy to create enough parking so that people can actually access public transport.
Of course, we also need to make public transport cheap enough that it's worth the extra time it takes for people to get to and from work. It used to cost me over $100 a week to catch the train every day and that's really difficult for people on lower incomes to manage - the lack of affordable public transport is a huge barrier to people using it more. Governments need to stop seeing public transport as something that has to pay its way through ever higher fares and accept that providing cheap (or, ideally, free) mass transport is a core part of their job. I'm positive that, over time, this would be far cheaper than the current approach of constant roadworks to tear up fairly new roads and build new bigger ones every few years.
Governments (in the area I live at least) could also make a big difference by getting rid of their insistence that public agencies be located in capital cities. A lot of the people who have to make the grind into the capital city every day to get to their public service jobs absolutely do not need to be there and their work could just as easily be done from regional areas, with the added bonus of better quality of life for many thousands of people who could be spending time with their family instead of commuting for 1-2 hours every day (my commute used to be 1.5 hours each way every single fucking weekday).
posted by dg at 3:54 PM on September 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
This is 100% the case in the real world where we have built enormous amounts of housing that is spread widely and often far away from almost all jobs. In a perfect world, we would never have built all those suburbs without mandating the safe-for-all-modes transport infrastructure that would allow people in the suburbs to live comfortably without multiple cars per household because that's the only reasonable way to get anywhere. But we don't live in a perfect world, we live in the world we have and compromise is the only way forward.
Where I live, we have pretty good public transport in and close to the centre of the nearby big city, but little or none outside that. We also have many thousands of people who need to get into the city every day who can only afford to live in the outer suburbs. The only feasible way to resolve that issue in the real world is transport hubs that are accessible by car from the suburbs and that keep cars out of the city where there is little parking and what exists is too expensive. In most cities, the cost of increasing the bandwidth of roads is insanely expensive, so we need to build those hubs where land is cheap and it's relatively easy to create enough parking so that people can actually access public transport.
Of course, we also need to make public transport cheap enough that it's worth the extra time it takes for people to get to and from work. It used to cost me over $100 a week to catch the train every day and that's really difficult for people on lower incomes to manage - the lack of affordable public transport is a huge barrier to people using it more. Governments need to stop seeing public transport as something that has to pay its way through ever higher fares and accept that providing cheap (or, ideally, free) mass transport is a core part of their job. I'm positive that, over time, this would be far cheaper than the current approach of constant roadworks to tear up fairly new roads and build new bigger ones every few years.
Governments (in the area I live at least) could also make a big difference by getting rid of their insistence that public agencies be located in capital cities. A lot of the people who have to make the grind into the capital city every day to get to their public service jobs absolutely do not need to be there and their work could just as easily be done from regional areas, with the added bonus of better quality of life for many thousands of people who could be spending time with their family instead of commuting for 1-2 hours every day (my commute used to be 1.5 hours each way every single fucking weekday).
posted by dg at 3:54 PM on September 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
It's disappointing that you're painting me as someone who would write you off like that.
I’m so sorry! Tone really doesn’t always convey very well in text. I meant that last part to read somewhat wryly, in the consciousness that I am absolutely being That Person who can’t stop herself from bringing her politics into literally every conversation and that I might have sounded a little intolerable by being all “get the bosses off your back” in the transit thread.
And I agree with you that I’d love to see more transit in less dense areas as well! I think unfortunately there’s less political will in funding it, but it would be wonderful.
posted by corb at 7:39 PM on September 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
I’m so sorry! Tone really doesn’t always convey very well in text. I meant that last part to read somewhat wryly, in the consciousness that I am absolutely being That Person who can’t stop herself from bringing her politics into literally every conversation and that I might have sounded a little intolerable by being all “get the bosses off your back” in the transit thread.
And I agree with you that I’d love to see more transit in less dense areas as well! I think unfortunately there’s less political will in funding it, but it would be wonderful.
posted by corb at 7:39 PM on September 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
Induced demand is an observed phenomenon
The increase in usage is an observed phenomenon. The label (and analysis) is agitprop.
("All the cashier lanes at the grocery are crowded, we should increase the number open." "No, that'll just lead to all of the new ones being crowded -- you're creating the demand by opening the new lanes!")
posted by Galvanic at 2:24 PM on September 27, 2023
The increase in usage is an observed phenomenon. The label (and analysis) is agitprop.
("All the cashier lanes at the grocery are crowded, we should increase the number open." "No, that'll just lead to all of the new ones being crowded -- you're creating the demand by opening the new lanes!")
posted by Galvanic at 2:24 PM on September 27, 2023
Your analogy does not hold water unless you allow the existence of multiple kinds of checkout lanes with dramatically different characteristics and thus tradeoffs between which kind to open. Do you honestly not see this?
People want to get places. Latent demand exists and deserves to be satisfied. The state does that by providing more capacity along any mode. Car-centric planning is the deceitful bad-faith agitprop, because it claims only car infra can increase capacity, and that the increase in car infra usage proves the specific need for more car infra. Neither claim is true. Your interlocutors make a good point when they say the demand was induced for that mode, and have a point that the same demand could have been satisfied with other modes.
Crucially, every other transit mode handles induced demand really, really well. When a train line opens, tons of people start taking it. Until the number becomes truly extreme, more riders mean better service, because trains scale well. (Through raw capacity as well as by justifying higher frequency.) Same with walking, same with buses, same with cycling. Cars are far and away the worst at handling induced demand; they collapse under geometric reality instead of robustly handling the surfeit.
posted by daveliepmann at 11:08 PM on September 27, 2023 [5 favorites]
People want to get places. Latent demand exists and deserves to be satisfied. The state does that by providing more capacity along any mode. Car-centric planning is the deceitful bad-faith agitprop, because it claims only car infra can increase capacity, and that the increase in car infra usage proves the specific need for more car infra. Neither claim is true. Your interlocutors make a good point when they say the demand was induced for that mode, and have a point that the same demand could have been satisfied with other modes.
Crucially, every other transit mode handles induced demand really, really well. When a train line opens, tons of people start taking it. Until the number becomes truly extreme, more riders mean better service, because trains scale well. (Through raw capacity as well as by justifying higher frequency.) Same with walking, same with buses, same with cycling. Cars are far and away the worst at handling induced demand; they collapse under geometric reality instead of robustly handling the surfeit.
posted by daveliepmann at 11:08 PM on September 27, 2023 [5 favorites]
It's obvious you either aren't trying to engage honestly here, or lack some necessary capacity to do so. Nevertheless: what about the people who don't want to? Or who can't drive? Or who can't afford to? Or who live in places dense enough that it is literally impossible for everyone to drive for daily tasks, let alone have a private car? You're very concerned about people's desire to drive being handwaved away; why do you find it OK to hand-wave away these people's concerns?
posted by daveliepmann at 10:19 AM on September 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by daveliepmann at 10:19 AM on September 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
do you think that it should be possible to fully participate in society without a car yes or no.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 10:20 AM on September 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 10:20 AM on September 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
People want to get places in cars.
Some people want to get places in cars. Many people want to get places in cars because they don't really understand that there are viable alternatives. Many people don't have access to cars for a variety of reasons.
As a car enthusiast, I would often prefer not to have to get places in cars, because it's such a wasteful way to travel and, when traveling because I have to (eg commuting to/from work) I resent my personal time being stolen from me for the benefit of someone else. I'd much rather catch a train to work than drive, because I can use that time to pursue things I enjoy, where driving both consumes my attention and steals my time.
As a car enthusiast, I would be overjoyed if we could get 50% of the cars off the road. More even. Think about how much nicer the roads would be to drive on! Think about how much cleaner the air would smell and sound! For me, driving because I have to is a chore. Driving because I want to and because I enjoy the experience is a very different thing. I absolutely believe any person living within a city or suburban area should be able to fully participate in society without a car and I'd be more than happy for those who don't want to or can't drive to not be out driving lethal machines in my vicinity.
posted by dg at 2:21 PM on September 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
Some people want to get places in cars. Many people want to get places in cars because they don't really understand that there are viable alternatives. Many people don't have access to cars for a variety of reasons.
As a car enthusiast, I would often prefer not to have to get places in cars, because it's such a wasteful way to travel and, when traveling because I have to (eg commuting to/from work) I resent my personal time being stolen from me for the benefit of someone else. I'd much rather catch a train to work than drive, because I can use that time to pursue things I enjoy, where driving both consumes my attention and steals my time.
As a car enthusiast, I would be overjoyed if we could get 50% of the cars off the road. More even. Think about how much nicer the roads would be to drive on! Think about how much cleaner the air would smell and sound! For me, driving because I have to is a chore. Driving because I want to and because I enjoy the experience is a very different thing. I absolutely believe any person living within a city or suburban area should be able to fully participate in society without a car and I'd be more than happy for those who don't want to or can't drive to not be out driving lethal machines in my vicinity.
posted by dg at 2:21 PM on September 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
do you think that it should be possible to fully participate in society without a car yes or no.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 2:36 PM on September 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 2:36 PM on September 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
I think it’s clear that people are talking past each other, and I genuinely can’t tell if it’s on purpose or not, but I think it’s making this conversation significantly worse.
If people want to and are actually intending to be jerks to each other, can you take it to private mail? And if not, can people please consider how their words are coming off and assign a charitable read to people’s words? I would like to answer and engage with genuine questions, but I find it exhausting to write out a thoughtful answer if people are just trying to street fight about the subject rather than discuss it.
posted by corb at 2:41 PM on September 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
If people want to and are actually intending to be jerks to each other, can you take it to private mail? And if not, can people please consider how their words are coming off and assign a charitable read to people’s words? I would like to answer and engage with genuine questions, but I find it exhausting to write out a thoughtful answer if people are just trying to street fight about the subject rather than discuss it.
posted by corb at 2:41 PM on September 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
Americans for the most part prefer cars
Let's assume that's true for a moment. It certainly rings true to me and not just for Americans.
Why do they prefer cars? Is it because they enjoy the experience of driving? If so, why do car manufacturers spend so much effort to divorce the driver from that experience? Is it because they've never been offered a viable alternative? Would people still prefer cars if they were offered an alternative that largely maintained the convenience and comfort they offer? Are people really so lazy they would rather sit for hours in traffic jams than walk a short distance to public transport?
posted by dg at 4:18 PM on September 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
Let's assume that's true for a moment. It certainly rings true to me and not just for Americans.
Why do they prefer cars? Is it because they enjoy the experience of driving? If so, why do car manufacturers spend so much effort to divorce the driver from that experience? Is it because they've never been offered a viable alternative? Would people still prefer cars if they were offered an alternative that largely maintained the convenience and comfort they offer? Are people really so lazy they would rather sit for hours in traffic jams than walk a short distance to public transport?
posted by dg at 4:18 PM on September 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
Mod note: Folks, now’s a great time in the thread to take a break, allow space for folks to chime in without talking at or over others and practicing treating each other with grace and compassion. No need to get into it with others, if you’re taking issue with a comment, please just flag and move on.
posted by travelingthyme (staff) at 8:03 PM on September 28, 2023
posted by travelingthyme (staff) at 8:03 PM on September 28, 2023
Corb, I don't think you and I are talking past each other. You've stated repeatedly that space should not be taken from cars. I think I've made some counterpoints showing that this necessarily preserves an unacceptable status quo of near-total car dominance.
My gentle question for you is, can you name a single project which reallocates car space to public transit, cycling, or walking space, which you think could achieve its goals without doing so? NYC's bus-only 14th street, Kreuzberg's Kottbusser Damm or any of its Kiezblocks, LA's Culver City bike lane, any of these street re-allocations in Montreal, current, past, proposed, whatever. I guess I'd prefer specific examples/streets over broader plans like Paris's school streets, Barcelona Superblocks, Brussels' Good Move, or Ghent's brilliant circulation plan, but it's up to you.
Because when I think about these projects, I see a "before" that is completely car-dependent, and an "after" where cars still have plenty of options, but other transit modes at least have a chance at viability. And all these projects require taking space from cars.
posted by daveliepmann at 11:00 PM on September 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
My gentle question for you is, can you name a single project which reallocates car space to public transit, cycling, or walking space, which you think could achieve its goals without doing so? NYC's bus-only 14th street, Kreuzberg's Kottbusser Damm or any of its Kiezblocks, LA's Culver City bike lane, any of these street re-allocations in Montreal, current, past, proposed, whatever. I guess I'd prefer specific examples/streets over broader plans like Paris's school streets, Barcelona Superblocks, Brussels' Good Move, or Ghent's brilliant circulation plan, but it's up to you.
Because when I think about these projects, I see a "before" that is completely car-dependent, and an "after" where cars still have plenty of options, but other transit modes at least have a chance at viability. And all these projects require taking space from cars.
posted by daveliepmann at 11:00 PM on September 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
(Though combining 'broad plan' and 'implementation not even started' would probably not lead to productive discussion, so I suggest avoiding e.g. autofreiberlin.)
posted by daveliepmann at 11:19 PM on September 28, 2023
posted by daveliepmann at 11:19 PM on September 28, 2023
Many people want to get places in cars because they don't really understand that there are viable alternatives.
What do you mean by this, exactly?
posted by Selena777 at 7:36 AM on September 29, 2023
What do you mean by this, exactly?
posted by Selena777 at 7:36 AM on September 29, 2023
Well, there are plenty of people who see transit as for people without cars, or assume that it's scary, or assume that it's inevitably going to take longer... I know so many people who basically don't have public transit as part of their mental picture of moving throughout the city.
posted by sagc at 7:41 AM on September 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by sagc at 7:41 AM on September 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
Why do they prefer cars?
Let me do the disclaimer shit up front so certain people don't mumble stuff under their breath about me just being a shill for Big Auto or something. I don't drive, don't own a car, haven't regularly driven a car since about 1987. I let my license expire. I prefer walking and bicycling and using the tram or train. The only cars I ever get into are occasional taxis when I have to get somewhere too far away and awkward for my usual methods, so probably no more than once a month? More like once a quarter, now that I think about it.
But there are some very obvious reasons why so many people want their own car.
* It takes you from your front door to (or very near) the front door of the place you want to go, whether that's a mile away or a thousand miles away. It you want to go there, it will get you right there with no transfers.
* It leaves exactly when you want to leave that day, and not a second earlier or later.
* It stops anywhere you feel like along the way.
* It doesn't stop anywhere for anyone else unless you want it to.
* It contains only the people you want it to contain. No skeevy strangers sitting next to you.
* It contains your stuff. You own it, so you can fairly securely store things in it from day to day.
* It's as clean as you keep it. No urine in the corner unless it's your urine in the corner.
* It's fairly secure. When things look dicey, you can lock your doors, roll up your windows, and speed away.
* It's as airtight as you want it to be, and it's set to the temperature you want.
* It's as well-ventilated as you want it to be, with as much breeze as you care to let in.
* It has very comfortable, adjustable, clean, reserved seats.
* It has a fantastic sound system that plays exactly what you want to hear.
* It's private, so you can sing to that sound system.
* It offers all of those things, not just to you, but to your family.
* A lot of people love to drive just for the sake of driving, like a lot of people love to ride a horse just for the sake of riding, and not because they want to get anywhere.
Probably 90 percent of the people on the bus wish they were driving a car instead. To get drivers to switch the other way, from their car to the bus, you have to convince or force them to give up on most or all of the above.
posted by pracowity at 8:24 AM on September 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
Let me do the disclaimer shit up front so certain people don't mumble stuff under their breath about me just being a shill for Big Auto or something. I don't drive, don't own a car, haven't regularly driven a car since about 1987. I let my license expire. I prefer walking and bicycling and using the tram or train. The only cars I ever get into are occasional taxis when I have to get somewhere too far away and awkward for my usual methods, so probably no more than once a month? More like once a quarter, now that I think about it.
But there are some very obvious reasons why so many people want their own car.
* It takes you from your front door to (or very near) the front door of the place you want to go, whether that's a mile away or a thousand miles away. It you want to go there, it will get you right there with no transfers.
* It leaves exactly when you want to leave that day, and not a second earlier or later.
* It stops anywhere you feel like along the way.
* It doesn't stop anywhere for anyone else unless you want it to.
* It contains only the people you want it to contain. No skeevy strangers sitting next to you.
* It contains your stuff. You own it, so you can fairly securely store things in it from day to day.
* It's as clean as you keep it. No urine in the corner unless it's your urine in the corner.
* It's fairly secure. When things look dicey, you can lock your doors, roll up your windows, and speed away.
* It's as airtight as you want it to be, and it's set to the temperature you want.
* It's as well-ventilated as you want it to be, with as much breeze as you care to let in.
* It has very comfortable, adjustable, clean, reserved seats.
* It has a fantastic sound system that plays exactly what you want to hear.
* It's private, so you can sing to that sound system.
* It offers all of those things, not just to you, but to your family.
* A lot of people love to drive just for the sake of driving, like a lot of people love to ride a horse just for the sake of riding, and not because they want to get anywhere.
Probably 90 percent of the people on the bus wish they were driving a car instead. To get drivers to switch the other way, from their car to the bus, you have to convince or force them to give up on most or all of the above.
posted by pracowity at 8:24 AM on September 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
more on pontevedra...
The Mayor Who Prioritized Pedestrians Before It Was Cool - "Spanish Mayor Miguel Fernández Lores started limiting the flow of cars in Pontevedra in 1999. The seaside city has been growing ever since."
posted by kliuless at 8:32 AM on September 29, 2023
The Mayor Who Prioritized Pedestrians Before It Was Cool - "Spanish Mayor Miguel Fernández Lores started limiting the flow of cars in Pontevedra in 1999. The seaside city has been growing ever since."
Family physician-turned-mayor Miguel Fernández Lores diagnosed his city’s major ailment: too many cars. Now Pontevedra is a model of success in a growing global movement of cities trying to reclaim the streets for pedestrians.also btw, fwiw, china's plan to revive its economy includes 15-minute cities: "Last October, for example, Shanghai announced a new campaign to reduce the proportion of people with extreme commutes, promising to build a more convenient and extensive transportation network and to keep the average commute to downtown areas within 45 minutes. The city's long-term ambition is to build a network of '15-minute community life circles.'"
“I felt I had to step up to help cure a sick city,” said Lores, from his office decorated with more than a dozen urban planning awards. “Cars were at the heart of the illness. We needed a livable city, where cars and people can cohabitate.”
Soon after he was first elected mayor in 1999, Lores moved to limit the number of cars that could enter and park in the old town. He gradually expanded those limits to other central neighborhoods and closed down some streets, diverting traffic to the outer limits of the city. His actions faced opposition. Conservative politicians cried foul for hampering free movement, while business owners complained fewer shoppers driving into the city center could hurt their bottom lines...
Lores, 69, has won seven straight terms in a largely conservative city, making him one of Spain’s longest-serving mayors. He has continued to reclaim urban spaces for pedestrians, but not ban cars altogether. Lores, who drives to work every day from his home in the city outskirts, said both drivers and pedestrian can coexist peacefully...
Take us back to your campaign for mayor in 1999. Why was taking back streets for pedestrians a priority?
The city was uninhabitable. It was an authentic car warehouse: noisy and polluted, with no public spaces, and people had no autonomy to occupy whatever spaces were left. What young people aspired to was to leave. Twenty-four years later and young people now want to stay in the city. They value their city because it is a livable city, designed for people...
Often the business community is most resistant to closed streets. How did you get local business owners on board?
Well, I had to explain things to them — and partnered with active local community members. We wanted to avoid [driving to] large-surface stores [outside the city center] because that doesn't support local businesses.
That's why we talk about the multi-services concept. We want the university to be downtown as well as schools and family-sized supermarkets. We want everything to be within reach for residents. This way you make the city more livable with greater social coexistence. People can walk the streets and do not need to take the car practically at all. If you have stores people need to take the car to even buy bread. That is not the model that we defend. So the change we promoted really resonated with people.
How did you manage to get rid of so much parking space in the city, and how did that impact people’s decisions about how to get around?
Its a common sense problem. With the previous model you had over 100,000 cars entering a two square kilometer area that only had space for 15,000 cars. That got the city completely jammed. It was always jammed from the morning ‘til nighttime because you entered from one side and left from the other. That just didn't work. So now there are fewer parking spaces, but people who need to use the car for their economic activity, to go into their own garage, can do so.
Public spaces need to be for people who live in cities, and for economic activity as well. But we are not a car-free city. We are a city that has the necessary number of cars to work properly.
posted by kliuless at 8:32 AM on September 29, 2023
The FPP is about the down sides of car dependency, and why those of us who enjoy driving still have an interest in ensuring that those without cars can fully participate in society.
Why people might want to drive cars is irrelevant to the FPP topic, since we’re talking about people who can’t drive cars, and their transportation and access options, as well as how it might benefit those who do have cars to also have other transportation options, or to have our built environment be designed to reduce the need for such transportation in the first place.
posted by eviemath at 9:00 AM on September 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
Why people might want to drive cars is irrelevant to the FPP topic, since we’re talking about people who can’t drive cars, and their transportation and access options, as well as how it might benefit those who do have cars to also have other transportation options, or to have our built environment be designed to reduce the need for such transportation in the first place.
posted by eviemath at 9:00 AM on September 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
What do you mean by ["many people want to get places in cars because they don't really understand that there are viable alternatives"], exactly?
A vanishingly small number of North Americans have ever experienced living with nice non-car transportation. Maybe in college. Visiting Disneyland or NYC almost count, but I'd say don't make the cut. (Vacations aren't normal life and NYC is still pretty awful.) The idea that you could safely, conveniently, and pleasantly get to school, work, errands — or take a vacation, drop your kid at pre-school, or visit a playground, or or or — without a car is literally beyond most imaginations in the new world.
Part of this is tied to rural living. A large part is not. There's no reason it has to be so in the SUNY town I grew up in, or the small- to medium-sized Northeast cities like the ones I visit family in.
posted by daveliepmann at 10:08 AM on September 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
A vanishingly small number of North Americans have ever experienced living with nice non-car transportation. Maybe in college. Visiting Disneyland or NYC almost count, but I'd say don't make the cut. (Vacations aren't normal life and NYC is still pretty awful.) The idea that you could safely, conveniently, and pleasantly get to school, work, errands — or take a vacation, drop your kid at pre-school, or visit a playground, or or or — without a car is literally beyond most imaginations in the new world.
Part of this is tied to rural living. A large part is not. There's no reason it has to be so in the SUNY town I grew up in, or the small- to medium-sized Northeast cities like the ones I visit family in.
posted by daveliepmann at 10:08 AM on September 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
That "nice" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. If NYC - which has managed to get and keep generations of people out of car culture - almost counts, what actually does?
posted by Selena777 at 10:22 AM on September 29, 2023
posted by Selena777 at 10:22 AM on September 29, 2023
I'm specifically discounting NYC for visitors. Living in NYC can count, though one should keep in mind some caveats. I'm talking about places with multiple qualities: nice connections to other cities and towns, and, if big enough, within its boundaries and to its suburbs. This requires long-distance trains, regional trains, and depending on size a metro plus some sort of commuter rail or S-Bahn. You also need clean frequent fast buses or trams, the ability to get ~everywhere in the area via low-stress bike routes, and walkable areas (ideally free of cars).
NYC excels at walkable areas, has improved its low-stress cycling routes tremendously in the past couple years, and has a good if barely-maintained metro. Other than that the situation is quite dire. Long-distance trains are practically useless in NA. (It's worth noting that NYC attempts to sub in air travel...then mind-bogglingly provides simply atrocious non-car access to its airports. Car dependency!) NYC has regional trains, but barely, and they're hamstrung by lack of transit-oriented development at ~all destinations. It has okay commuter rail. My impression of NYC buses is not well informed. Lastly, despite being the continent's paragon of non-car transit, NYC is crawling with cars.
Some places which I think do "count": anywhere in the Netherlands, especially outside of Amsterdam. Paris, Barcelona, Berlin. Seoul, I think. I'm told London, Tokyo, Munich?, and much of the North-Rhine Westphalia region. Many of the smaller places connected to those cities. Lots and lots more places I'm not familiar with.
posted by daveliepmann at 11:30 AM on September 29, 2023
NYC excels at walkable areas, has improved its low-stress cycling routes tremendously in the past couple years, and has a good if barely-maintained metro. Other than that the situation is quite dire. Long-distance trains are practically useless in NA. (It's worth noting that NYC attempts to sub in air travel...then mind-bogglingly provides simply atrocious non-car access to its airports. Car dependency!) NYC has regional trains, but barely, and they're hamstrung by lack of transit-oriented development at ~all destinations. It has okay commuter rail. My impression of NYC buses is not well informed. Lastly, despite being the continent's paragon of non-car transit, NYC is crawling with cars.
Some places which I think do "count": anywhere in the Netherlands, especially outside of Amsterdam. Paris, Barcelona, Berlin. Seoul, I think. I'm told London, Tokyo, Munich?, and much of the North-Rhine Westphalia region. Many of the smaller places connected to those cities. Lots and lots more places I'm not familiar with.
posted by daveliepmann at 11:30 AM on September 29, 2023
Why people might want to drive cars is irrelevant to the FPP topic,
So the topic of the FPP is specifically, per the video, how it's possible to "adore cars and still advocate for a balanced and safer transportation ecosystem". So yes, why people like cars, and how cars still fit into that balanced and safer transportation ecosystem is absolutely relevant to the topic of the FPP. Saying "Cars are the only way to go, and other methods don't make sense" wouldn't be, but starting from a place of accepting that cars have some positive benefits is actually far more on topic for the FPP than suggesting that cars have no positive benefits, as some posters are doing.
can you name a single project which reallocates car space to public transit, cycling, or walking space, which you think could achieve its goals without doing so?
So I think that's a complicated question, because I think in many cases the projects that I find most objectionable have as their stated purpose goals which are beyond goals that I agree with. So their stated goals often go beyond actually "increasing public transit, cycling, or walking space". Sometimes I think *those* goals could have been accomplished, but not necessarily the additional goals of, for example, "getting cars out of the city center". So like - for example, a lot of projected dedicated bike lanes, it seems to me that they could exist (and be protected lanes even) much narrower than they currently are, because the width of a bike and the width of a car are significantly different. So even adding an additional bike lane on each side of the street wouldn't seem that it would actually need to take away a full lane of car space. Or for example, I don't actually think bus lanes are really helpful - I think that frequently bus lanes get created without creating the amount of buses that really would need to exist to make use of said bus lanes, so they wind up either largely empty and causing more congestion than they solve, or the emptiness is filled with cars and so thus the utility doesn't exist at all.
many people want to get places in cars because they don't really understand that there are viable alternatives
The thing is, I'm not really sure that there are, at the moment, viable alternatives for some of the issues that are mentioned in the list pracowity listed above. Things like secure storage of items, for example, are a huge issue unsolved by mass transit. Or from a criminal defense perspective - your personal car is considered as somewhat similar to your home - safe from certain forms of search and intrusion, in a way that a public transit setting is never considered. Or the issue of stranger harassment - there is currently no solution for the issue of what to do if you're being harassed on a public transportation system. And one major thing that hasn't been mentioned is the transportation of *goods*. Not having a personally owned vehicle really limits your access to cheap or used goods, that require transport from one location to another, which you can't take on public transportation. Uhaul is ruinously expensive these days even for short trips, to the point that it eliminates a lot of the advantage of, say, buying used furniture. I would absolutely be really interested to seeing if there are solutions to this problem: is there, for example, a potential publicly funded ridesharing solution for furniture transportation? Could there be? What would it look like? Could there be more inexpensive storage at public locations? I feel like there used to be - a lot of fiction mentions 'bus lockers', but I don't think I've seen cheap bus lockers in my lifetime. Does it still exist other places?
posted by corb at 1:11 PM on September 29, 2023
So the topic of the FPP is specifically, per the video, how it's possible to "adore cars and still advocate for a balanced and safer transportation ecosystem". So yes, why people like cars, and how cars still fit into that balanced and safer transportation ecosystem is absolutely relevant to the topic of the FPP. Saying "Cars are the only way to go, and other methods don't make sense" wouldn't be, but starting from a place of accepting that cars have some positive benefits is actually far more on topic for the FPP than suggesting that cars have no positive benefits, as some posters are doing.
can you name a single project which reallocates car space to public transit, cycling, or walking space, which you think could achieve its goals without doing so?
So I think that's a complicated question, because I think in many cases the projects that I find most objectionable have as their stated purpose goals which are beyond goals that I agree with. So their stated goals often go beyond actually "increasing public transit, cycling, or walking space". Sometimes I think *those* goals could have been accomplished, but not necessarily the additional goals of, for example, "getting cars out of the city center". So like - for example, a lot of projected dedicated bike lanes, it seems to me that they could exist (and be protected lanes even) much narrower than they currently are, because the width of a bike and the width of a car are significantly different. So even adding an additional bike lane on each side of the street wouldn't seem that it would actually need to take away a full lane of car space. Or for example, I don't actually think bus lanes are really helpful - I think that frequently bus lanes get created without creating the amount of buses that really would need to exist to make use of said bus lanes, so they wind up either largely empty and causing more congestion than they solve, or the emptiness is filled with cars and so thus the utility doesn't exist at all.
many people want to get places in cars because they don't really understand that there are viable alternatives
The thing is, I'm not really sure that there are, at the moment, viable alternatives for some of the issues that are mentioned in the list pracowity listed above. Things like secure storage of items, for example, are a huge issue unsolved by mass transit. Or from a criminal defense perspective - your personal car is considered as somewhat similar to your home - safe from certain forms of search and intrusion, in a way that a public transit setting is never considered. Or the issue of stranger harassment - there is currently no solution for the issue of what to do if you're being harassed on a public transportation system. And one major thing that hasn't been mentioned is the transportation of *goods*. Not having a personally owned vehicle really limits your access to cheap or used goods, that require transport from one location to another, which you can't take on public transportation. Uhaul is ruinously expensive these days even for short trips, to the point that it eliminates a lot of the advantage of, say, buying used furniture. I would absolutely be really interested to seeing if there are solutions to this problem: is there, for example, a potential publicly funded ridesharing solution for furniture transportation? Could there be? What would it look like? Could there be more inexpensive storage at public locations? I feel like there used to be - a lot of fiction mentions 'bus lockers', but I don't think I've seen cheap bus lockers in my lifetime. Does it still exist other places?
posted by corb at 1:11 PM on September 29, 2023
Corb, if you're at all able, could you name a specific bike or bus lane so we can examine its particular merits and needs? I don't think talking in generalities is helping us and I want to make sure we discuss an instance you're familiar with.
posted by daveliepmann at 1:31 PM on September 29, 2023
posted by daveliepmann at 1:31 PM on September 29, 2023
For furniture, what I do is rent a cargo bike or call a taxi. Cheap, quick, easy. No need for private cars.
posted by daveliepmann at 1:32 PM on September 29, 2023
posted by daveliepmann at 1:32 PM on September 29, 2023
dedicated bike lanes, it seems to me that they could exist (and be protected lanes even) much narrower than they currently are
A typical car lane is 12' wide, maybe 11' on narrower streets. My bike's handlebars are 26" wide. Other types of bars can be even wider, so let's say 30".
Cyclists ride at different speeds. A bike lane really needs to allow two cyclists to ride safely side by side even if just in passing. More importantly it's also a safety issue; there needs to be enough room to get around an obstruction, a cyclist stopped with a flat, debris, sewer grates, or a pedestrian walking in the lane. Especially if it is protected with curbs/bollards, because there's nowhere to 'overflow' into if you're hemmed in by curbs on all sides and you need to get around something, but honestly this is also true if what you're hemmed in by is just parked cars on one side and vehicles whizzing by at 30mph+ on the other.
So, 30" x 2 bikes plus a mere four inches on either side plus 4" between them is 72" or 6 feet. Which is exactly what the National Association of City Transportation (NACTO) recommends for a simple one-way painted bike lane. But note this is NOT a protected bike lane and feels and is incredibly sketchy and unsafe. There is no space if a driver of a car drifts or swerves toward the bike lane. [TW: link to twitter thread about a cyclist in a painted bike lane being hit-and-run by a driver resulting in significant medical trauma.] If there are parked cars on the right, you're riding exactly in the path that drivers fling open their car doors into, which can be deadly for cyclists.
Add in protection and space for human error and it doesn't take long until, even if you don't technically need the full 12' you're taking enough width that a car lane needs to go away anyway.
BTW, that room for error - whether it's room to install curbs or bollards or planters, or just extra space and paint which they call a "buffered" bike lane -so important. And it's what they do for cars! It's why highways have such wide medians. It's why intersections and car lanes keep getting wider and wider, because drivers need lots of room to make mistakes at speed. If cars are allowed to take up that much space because drivers can't be expected to operate perfectly at all time, bikes should have a proportionate buffer space too.
(Ironically, the buffer space that cyclists need is mostly protection from cars, not themselves, so if you're questioning why bike lanes are so wide the answer, again, is cars.)
That lack of safety you get from a narrow bike lake will prevent all but the most hardened city cyclists from riding and negate much of the good you want to do in terms of encouraging people from all walks of life to consider a bike as transportation. I can't tell you how many friends I know who say "I'd love to get around Chicago by bike, but it's too harrowing." The only way to change that perception and people's everyday transportation decisions is to make fully protected, spacious bike lanes and paths. If you want to use a carrot and not a stick, that carrot needs to be pretty damn enticing! Feeling like your life is constantly in danger by cars is not that.
Two-way cycle tracks look like a lot more space/infrastructure but actually reduce how much buffer space is needed around a bike lane by putting both directions together. Unfortunately they can cause other conflicts because drivers and pedestrians aren't accustomed to looking for bike traffic in both directions. I ride briefly in one of these in downtown Chicago on an otherwise one-way street and literally cannot go through a green light without slowing down to nearly a stop, because pedestrians with headphones in are only looking in one direction for cars before deciding to cross against the light. I am NOT jaywalking-shaming here, I know that it's a problem spot and compensate for it, but it's very frustrating and I have nearly hit pedestrians (thankfully at slow speed because I've already slowed down in anticipation).
posted by misskaz at 2:02 PM on September 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
A typical car lane is 12' wide, maybe 11' on narrower streets. My bike's handlebars are 26" wide. Other types of bars can be even wider, so let's say 30".
Cyclists ride at different speeds. A bike lane really needs to allow two cyclists to ride safely side by side even if just in passing. More importantly it's also a safety issue; there needs to be enough room to get around an obstruction, a cyclist stopped with a flat, debris, sewer grates, or a pedestrian walking in the lane. Especially if it is protected with curbs/bollards, because there's nowhere to 'overflow' into if you're hemmed in by curbs on all sides and you need to get around something, but honestly this is also true if what you're hemmed in by is just parked cars on one side and vehicles whizzing by at 30mph+ on the other.
So, 30" x 2 bikes plus a mere four inches on either side plus 4" between them is 72" or 6 feet. Which is exactly what the National Association of City Transportation (NACTO) recommends for a simple one-way painted bike lane. But note this is NOT a protected bike lane and feels and is incredibly sketchy and unsafe. There is no space if a driver of a car drifts or swerves toward the bike lane. [TW: link to twitter thread about a cyclist in a painted bike lane being hit-and-run by a driver resulting in significant medical trauma.] If there are parked cars on the right, you're riding exactly in the path that drivers fling open their car doors into, which can be deadly for cyclists.
Add in protection and space for human error and it doesn't take long until, even if you don't technically need the full 12' you're taking enough width that a car lane needs to go away anyway.
BTW, that room for error - whether it's room to install curbs or bollards or planters, or just extra space and paint which they call a "buffered" bike lane -so important. And it's what they do for cars! It's why highways have such wide medians. It's why intersections and car lanes keep getting wider and wider, because drivers need lots of room to make mistakes at speed. If cars are allowed to take up that much space because drivers can't be expected to operate perfectly at all time, bikes should have a proportionate buffer space too.
(Ironically, the buffer space that cyclists need is mostly protection from cars, not themselves, so if you're questioning why bike lanes are so wide the answer, again, is cars.)
That lack of safety you get from a narrow bike lake will prevent all but the most hardened city cyclists from riding and negate much of the good you want to do in terms of encouraging people from all walks of life to consider a bike as transportation. I can't tell you how many friends I know who say "I'd love to get around Chicago by bike, but it's too harrowing." The only way to change that perception and people's everyday transportation decisions is to make fully protected, spacious bike lanes and paths. If you want to use a carrot and not a stick, that carrot needs to be pretty damn enticing! Feeling like your life is constantly in danger by cars is not that.
Two-way cycle tracks look like a lot more space/infrastructure but actually reduce how much buffer space is needed around a bike lane by putting both directions together. Unfortunately they can cause other conflicts because drivers and pedestrians aren't accustomed to looking for bike traffic in both directions. I ride briefly in one of these in downtown Chicago on an otherwise one-way street and literally cannot go through a green light without slowing down to nearly a stop, because pedestrians with headphones in are only looking in one direction for cars before deciding to cross against the light. I am NOT jaywalking-shaming here, I know that it's a problem spot and compensate for it, but it's very frustrating and I have nearly hit pedestrians (thankfully at slow speed because I've already slowed down in anticipation).
posted by misskaz at 2:02 PM on September 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
When it comes to width, my metric is whether a parent with two kids in a cargo bike can safely pass an elderly neighbor on an e-trike with plenty of space (~1m) between them and to the each side of the lane. That's the goal if you want to empower families and cautious, less athletic riders. If you don't want to do that you're a bad person.
Here's a lane near me that's wide enough. It's protected now where the yellow stripe is. In the pic you can see the black stripe where the old, unprotected lane used to be. It used to suck and now it's okay. If I'm reading between the lines, corb, you might even agree that this taking-of-space-from-cars was acceptable because cars didn't lose a lane?
posted by daveliepmann at 2:46 PM on September 29, 2023
Here's a lane near me that's wide enough. It's protected now where the yellow stripe is. In the pic you can see the black stripe where the old, unprotected lane used to be. It used to suck and now it's okay. If I'm reading between the lines, corb, you might even agree that this taking-of-space-from-cars was acceptable because cars didn't lose a lane?
posted by daveliepmann at 2:46 PM on September 29, 2023
without a car is literally beyond most imaginations in the new world.
Yes, because they live in places in the US where it's simply not possible to live without a car. Not because they're car dependent or car additicted or car centric but because where they live cars are the best option and where even before highways existed.
Why people might want to drive cars is irrelevant to the FPP topic, since we’re talking about people who can’t drive cars,
Again with the discussion policing! I'm talking about people in general -- and my point is that the discussion almost always finds ways to exclude or marginalize them (car-dependency/addiction!). You can assert the discussion you want to have, but I'm not going to agree to it.
posted by Galvanic at 2:50 PM on October 4, 2023
Yes, because they live in places in the US where it's simply not possible to live without a car. Not because they're car dependent or car additicted or car centric but because where they live cars are the best option and where even before highways existed.
Why people might want to drive cars is irrelevant to the FPP topic, since we’re talking about people who can’t drive cars,
Again with the discussion policing! I'm talking about people in general -- and my point is that the discussion almost always finds ways to exclude or marginalize them (car-dependency/addiction!). You can assert the discussion you want to have, but I'm not going to agree to it.
posted by Galvanic at 2:50 PM on October 4, 2023
If I'm reading between the lines, corb, you might even agree that this taking-of-space-from-cars was acceptable because cars didn't lose a lane
Yeah, sorry it took so long, I needed to open it on my computer so it would translate.
I think I'm conflicted about whether bike lanes should always need enough space to allow passing, but feel like I may not know enough about it to have a firm opinion. On the one hand, I think that not all streets are made with enough space to allow cars to pass each other, and that seems to be fine, so it would seem like it would be okay with bikes? That maybe bikes would need passing lanes only on streets that also had cars needing passing lanes? But it's possible there's something about the comparative speeds of bicyclists that makes it more necessary that I'm simply not familiar with.
I think also a thing that I've seen which appears to me to look good, but I'd be open to more thoughts on, is putting the parking lanes on the other side of the bike lane, so that bikes are in between the sidewalk and the parked cars, rather than between the parked cars and the cars in motion. It seems like it allows the parked cars themselves to be a buffer, so creating a buffer between bike lane and fast moving cars without necessarily adding a non-usable buffer. But again, I'd be interested in thoughts.
posted by corb at 3:20 PM on October 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
Yeah, sorry it took so long, I needed to open it on my computer so it would translate.
I think I'm conflicted about whether bike lanes should always need enough space to allow passing, but feel like I may not know enough about it to have a firm opinion. On the one hand, I think that not all streets are made with enough space to allow cars to pass each other, and that seems to be fine, so it would seem like it would be okay with bikes? That maybe bikes would need passing lanes only on streets that also had cars needing passing lanes? But it's possible there's something about the comparative speeds of bicyclists that makes it more necessary that I'm simply not familiar with.
I think also a thing that I've seen which appears to me to look good, but I'd be open to more thoughts on, is putting the parking lanes on the other side of the bike lane, so that bikes are in between the sidewalk and the parked cars, rather than between the parked cars and the cars in motion. It seems like it allows the parked cars themselves to be a buffer, so creating a buffer between bike lane and fast moving cars without necessarily adding a non-usable buffer. But again, I'd be interested in thoughts.
posted by corb at 3:20 PM on October 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
On the one hand: not bicycling next to moving cars would improve many aspects of bicycle safety. On the other hand, I imagine bicyclists getting doored would be a larger risk if bicyclists passed stopped cars on the passenger side instead of the driver side. ‘Course, if the bicycles are not immediately adjacent to moving car traffic, possibly the bicycle lanes could run in the opposite direction as the car traffic, making people getting out of cars more likely to see approaching bicycles?
posted by eviemath at 5:30 PM on October 4, 2023
posted by eviemath at 5:30 PM on October 4, 2023
Yes, because they live in places in the US where it's simply not possible to live without a car. Not because they're car dependent or car additicted or car centric but because where they live cars are the best option
You have literally just described car dependency. It’s not a personal choice, it’s a structural issue.
And people do still live without cars in those parts of the US, whether due to age, income, ability level, or being undocumented and thus unable to get a driver’s license in some states. It just makes their lives much much harder than they should be, puts them at increased risk for negative health outcomes or domestic abuse, etc.
posted by eviemath at 5:35 PM on October 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
You have literally just described car dependency. It’s not a personal choice, it’s a structural issue.
And people do still live without cars in those parts of the US, whether due to age, income, ability level, or being undocumented and thus unable to get a driver’s license in some states. It just makes their lives much much harder than they should be, puts them at increased risk for negative health outcomes or domestic abuse, etc.
posted by eviemath at 5:35 PM on October 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
I think the main reason bike lanes are put between parked cars and traffic is because bike lanes are rarely contiguous for any journey - you have to exit them into the traffic at some point and transit back to the bike lane somewhere else. This would be more than difficult with a row of parked cars in between.
posted by dg at 8:56 PM on October 4, 2023
posted by dg at 8:56 PM on October 4, 2023
putting the parking lanes on the other side of the bike lane, so that bikes are in between the sidewalk and the parked cars
Excellent point, corb. This is a great technique, very common where I live. It's not always appropriate and there are a few downsides, nevertheless in general I like it very much.
The biggest downside IMO is that it can make intersections more dangerous, in that car drivers don't see people cycling until they've already right-hooked them. This can be addressed with good intersection design which 1. prevents parked cars from obstructing sight lines and 2. makes it impossible for cars to turn at high speeds. I want to gently but clearly note that the trade-off here is between stochastically but surely killing people and slowing cars down by taking space from cars.
As to dooring, this is rarely a problem here with this style of bike lane because they're designed to have a narrow strip of dead space between the bike lane and the curb.
Another less consequential downside of parking-between-car-and-bike-space is that in Berlin we often rely on the style of paving (brick style and color) to denote the distinction between walking space and cycling space. This is a perennial challenge for clueless tourists. On stretches where the bike lane is instead converted from car space, we trade that downside for the need to build physical barriers to prevent cars from using the cycle space as parking. See also the Johnson St Bike Lane Challenge in NYC. Building those barriers is a tightrope between blocking some uses, being porous to other uses, cost, and garishness. Short, long concrete seems often best.
I also basically agree with you about passing. Not every street needs to allow passing, but it's both fair and practical that if cars can, bikes should be able to, too.
bike lanes are rarely contiguous for any journey
If this is an issue then you have bigger problems which need to be solved first. This is a major reason why I argue so vigorously on this topic: piecemeal efforts just don't cut it. Until you have a relatively contiguous "get everywhere" network, your ROI is pitiful along every axis that counts. Analogy: would you commute by car if 90% of it was paved, but 10% required getting out and pushing your car through sand?
posted by daveliepmann at 12:41 AM on October 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
Excellent point, corb. This is a great technique, very common where I live. It's not always appropriate and there are a few downsides, nevertheless in general I like it very much.
The biggest downside IMO is that it can make intersections more dangerous, in that car drivers don't see people cycling until they've already right-hooked them. This can be addressed with good intersection design which 1. prevents parked cars from obstructing sight lines and 2. makes it impossible for cars to turn at high speeds. I want to gently but clearly note that the trade-off here is between stochastically but surely killing people and slowing cars down by taking space from cars.
As to dooring, this is rarely a problem here with this style of bike lane because they're designed to have a narrow strip of dead space between the bike lane and the curb.
Another less consequential downside of parking-between-car-and-bike-space is that in Berlin we often rely on the style of paving (brick style and color) to denote the distinction between walking space and cycling space. This is a perennial challenge for clueless tourists. On stretches where the bike lane is instead converted from car space, we trade that downside for the need to build physical barriers to prevent cars from using the cycle space as parking. See also the Johnson St Bike Lane Challenge in NYC. Building those barriers is a tightrope between blocking some uses, being porous to other uses, cost, and garishness. Short, long concrete seems often best.
I also basically agree with you about passing. Not every street needs to allow passing, but it's both fair and practical that if cars can, bikes should be able to, too.
bike lanes are rarely contiguous for any journey
If this is an issue then you have bigger problems which need to be solved first. This is a major reason why I argue so vigorously on this topic: piecemeal efforts just don't cut it. Until you have a relatively contiguous "get everywhere" network, your ROI is pitiful along every axis that counts. Analogy: would you commute by car if 90% of it was paved, but 10% required getting out and pushing your car through sand?
posted by daveliepmann at 12:41 AM on October 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
Re: sight lines at intersections ("daylighting"), here's a successful approach in NJ (video). Short version: curb extensions or bike parking, maybe raise the intersection when you repave. If you haven't experienced it, you might be shocked at how much these small interventions improve the walking experience.
posted by daveliepmann at 12:50 AM on October 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by daveliepmann at 12:50 AM on October 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
I imagine bicyclists getting doored would be a larger risk if bicyclists passed stopped cars on the passenger side instead of the driver side
The joy of ubiquitous single occupancy cars is the passenger door is rarely opened.
posted by grahamparks at 1:57 AM on October 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
The joy of ubiquitous single occupancy cars is the passenger door is rarely opened.
posted by grahamparks at 1:57 AM on October 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
You have literally just described car dependency. It’s not a personal choice, it’s a structural issue
eviemath, I'm curious as to what your suggested improvements for changing that in more rural areas would be. Leaving aside the issue of funding, it still seems really difficult in areas where, for example, it might be a mile or so between houses, or where a town may have under a thousand people. I would support more transit in those areas, but I'm not sure I understand how it could be implemented even before the issue of how it's paid for comes into things. As I understand it, any replacement for cars needs to consider full hours and frequent service, which seems hard on routes that might only serve a few people.
posted by corb at 1:44 PM on October 5, 2023
eviemath, I'm curious as to what your suggested improvements for changing that in more rural areas would be. Leaving aside the issue of funding, it still seems really difficult in areas where, for example, it might be a mile or so between houses, or where a town may have under a thousand people. I would support more transit in those areas, but I'm not sure I understand how it could be implemented even before the issue of how it's paid for comes into things. As I understand it, any replacement for cars needs to consider full hours and frequent service, which seems hard on routes that might only serve a few people.
posted by corb at 1:44 PM on October 5, 2023
Oh, rural public transportation is a harder issue, yes! Which is why a lot of the commenters have been pointing out that starting in higher density areas (which also happen to be where more people voice a desire for public transportation) would be a good idea.
But some things that I’ve seen working (when adequately funded) in rural areas include access-a-bus type bus service (sometimes needs to be pre-booked so that route planning can be done more efficiently, but even that helps if you’re a senior who doesn’t drive but has to get to health appointments or make a weekly shopping trip or even just get into town regularly for socializing), and multi-use or bicycle-specific trails (which could be used by electric bicycles for those who need to commute by bicycle or sub-motorized-vehicle-level little mopeds) that are wide enough for tricycles for folks who may have balance issues with bicycles (I live in an actual rural area, not a rural by dint of being industrial farming area, so there’s space for crating such trails without even having to take away space from cars).
Also useful: centrally organized rideshare collectives; and strong worker protections so that having a car breakdown or other transportation issue doesn’t result in job loss, better regulations around what sort of scheduling is allowed, minimum wage being closer to a living wage, income supports for folks on disability or unemployment being closer to a living wage, not requiring that people have no assets of any value (such as a car) before they are eligible for income supports, better before- and after-school programs and having centrally located places for young people to hang out where they aren’t going to be harassed for being teenagers in public, etc. Passenger rail service that extends farther out would also be helpful. And better inter-town/regional bus service (often folks may be able to get to a central bus pickup in their immediate town, but would not be able to easily get to work or an appointment two towns over).
None of this is going to be money-making or even cost-neutral in a rural setting. It’s a public service, which should be provided out of state or provincial taxes because it is a public good. But even the one bus that runs up and down the main secondary highway in my area with no deviations within each town is way more helpful than nothing.
posted by eviemath at 2:46 PM on October 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
But some things that I’ve seen working (when adequately funded) in rural areas include access-a-bus type bus service (sometimes needs to be pre-booked so that route planning can be done more efficiently, but even that helps if you’re a senior who doesn’t drive but has to get to health appointments or make a weekly shopping trip or even just get into town regularly for socializing), and multi-use or bicycle-specific trails (which could be used by electric bicycles for those who need to commute by bicycle or sub-motorized-vehicle-level little mopeds) that are wide enough for tricycles for folks who may have balance issues with bicycles (I live in an actual rural area, not a rural by dint of being industrial farming area, so there’s space for crating such trails without even having to take away space from cars).
Also useful: centrally organized rideshare collectives; and strong worker protections so that having a car breakdown or other transportation issue doesn’t result in job loss, better regulations around what sort of scheduling is allowed, minimum wage being closer to a living wage, income supports for folks on disability or unemployment being closer to a living wage, not requiring that people have no assets of any value (such as a car) before they are eligible for income supports, better before- and after-school programs and having centrally located places for young people to hang out where they aren’t going to be harassed for being teenagers in public, etc. Passenger rail service that extends farther out would also be helpful. And better inter-town/regional bus service (often folks may be able to get to a central bus pickup in their immediate town, but would not be able to easily get to work or an appointment two towns over).
None of this is going to be money-making or even cost-neutral in a rural setting. It’s a public service, which should be provided out of state or provincial taxes because it is a public good. But even the one bus that runs up and down the main secondary highway in my area with no deviations within each town is way more helpful than nothing.
posted by eviemath at 2:46 PM on October 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
That mile between houses growth/development pattern is itself a product of car dependency, of course. If you look at where people lived within rural areas before cars, it was a lot more clustered around stops on a train line or similar longer-distance shared transportation option. (Or places that one could get to by boat, for coastal regions.)
posted by eviemath at 2:49 PM on October 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 2:49 PM on October 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
So another component is zoning and development regulations (or lack thereof) and incentives in rural communities, which could be addressed either by carrots or sticks or a mix of the two.
posted by eviemath at 2:50 PM on October 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by eviemath at 2:50 PM on October 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
And part of that is providing safe, affordable housing in the central areas near what transportation options do exist; as opposed to relying on developers buying out a random farm field and building a sprawling neighborhood of "accessible" one-storey duplexes on slabs, where the home is certainly accessible from the driveway but there's no way to get to even a grocery store without driving.
posted by eviemath at 3:00 PM on October 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 3:00 PM on October 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
eviemath, I'm curious as to what your suggested improvements for changing that in more rural areas would be. Leaving aside the issue of funding, it still seems really difficult in areas where, for example, it might be a mile or so between houses, or where a town may have under a thousand people. I would support more transit in those areas, but I'm not sure I understand how it could be implemented even before the issue of how it's paid for comes into things. As I understand it, any replacement for cars needs to consider full hours and frequent service, which seems hard on routes that might only serve a few people.
The answer to this specifically is do the people in the rural area have a road? How did the road to the rural area get built and maintained? (I guarantee it's never paid for itself.) You pay for alternatives to cars the same way.
One of the symptoms of car dependency is that a lot of people experience a really weird system where every single trip they make is by car. If you think about this for a moment, this seems crazy -- we have different types of homes, because people have different needs and preferences; we have different types of clothes, different types of food, different ways to write, different kinds of entertainment. Almost every problem in human society has a bunch of different solutions to it, some of which work better in certain circumstances than others.
But people who are trapped in car dependency experience this system, and the conclusion is that any change to car dependency must mean moving from a system where all the trips are by car to moving to a system where all the trips are by bike, or transit, or whatever is being discussed. And thus, the presence of a single hypothetical trip that could only be made by car (in the existing, car-dependent system) -- someone in a rural area, someone with a disability helped by a car, someone with a specific need -- is somehow invalidating to the idea that the vast majority of trips that are made by car do not inherently need to be made by car (or at least do not need to but for the bad policies that penalize alternatives to the car).
It's like someone who has only ever eaten sandwiches all their life hearing of the concept of soup, and pointing out that at a party they once attended, there was a six-foot sandwich cut into pieces for everybody, but you could never do that with soup, since it would be unhygienic, and therefore soup is not a serious type of food to eat unless you address the specific problem of what to do at parties.
Car trips are the most expensive, the most deadly, the most polluting, and the most planet-destroying way to move people or goods, and for the sake of everyone we need to minimize them. And we can start doing that for the first 5% or 10% or 25% or 50% of car trips without having a detailed solution for every single oddball trip in the 99th percentile.
Which doesn't mean that rural public transportation isn't important, or that there can't be steps to improve it. Colorado's Bustang system is a state-wide system offering reasonable intercity transit with 3-6 round trips per day to Denver from Colorado Springs, Grand Junction and Fort Collins, plus Bustang Outrider offering daily or three-day-a-week service to a bunch of much smaller centres like Lamar, Craig and Alamosa.
Or an even better example is BC Transit, which provides both local and regional service. As an example, the South Okanagan-Similkameen service connects the central city of Penticton (35,000) with over a dozen smaller towns, over a distance of over 120 km from the northmost to the southmost. Places like Naramata and West Bench, which have about 1000 and 2000 people respectively have 4 or 5 round trips to Penticton per day. Okanagan Falls, which has about 2200 people has not only trips to Penticton but an internal circulator as well. (People in a town of 1000 don't actually need much transit for local trips, because they're within walking distance.) That's a decent baseline, one that allows people some ability to go into town to see the specialist or shop if they want.
I can't find numbers for BC Transit's smallest systems, but the systems in the metros (Kelowna, Abbotsford, Kamloops, Nanaimo and Prince George -- the first two are ~200K and the last 3 around ~100K people each, not big centres) have total subsidies on the order of $65-150 per capita as of last year, and I suspect that's high because it includes some post-COVID recovery money that should be replaced by fare revenue this year. And they're not amazing transit meccas or anything, but they got 2-4% transit mode share of commutes in 2021; the same share as metros like Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Portland or Seattle got in 2021. For somewhere between 20 and 40 cents per person per day.
posted by Superilla at 4:54 PM on October 5, 2023 [5 favorites]
The answer to this specifically is do the people in the rural area have a road? How did the road to the rural area get built and maintained? (I guarantee it's never paid for itself.) You pay for alternatives to cars the same way.
One of the symptoms of car dependency is that a lot of people experience a really weird system where every single trip they make is by car. If you think about this for a moment, this seems crazy -- we have different types of homes, because people have different needs and preferences; we have different types of clothes, different types of food, different ways to write, different kinds of entertainment. Almost every problem in human society has a bunch of different solutions to it, some of which work better in certain circumstances than others.
But people who are trapped in car dependency experience this system, and the conclusion is that any change to car dependency must mean moving from a system where all the trips are by car to moving to a system where all the trips are by bike, or transit, or whatever is being discussed. And thus, the presence of a single hypothetical trip that could only be made by car (in the existing, car-dependent system) -- someone in a rural area, someone with a disability helped by a car, someone with a specific need -- is somehow invalidating to the idea that the vast majority of trips that are made by car do not inherently need to be made by car (or at least do not need to but for the bad policies that penalize alternatives to the car).
It's like someone who has only ever eaten sandwiches all their life hearing of the concept of soup, and pointing out that at a party they once attended, there was a six-foot sandwich cut into pieces for everybody, but you could never do that with soup, since it would be unhygienic, and therefore soup is not a serious type of food to eat unless you address the specific problem of what to do at parties.
Car trips are the most expensive, the most deadly, the most polluting, and the most planet-destroying way to move people or goods, and for the sake of everyone we need to minimize them. And we can start doing that for the first 5% or 10% or 25% or 50% of car trips without having a detailed solution for every single oddball trip in the 99th percentile.
Which doesn't mean that rural public transportation isn't important, or that there can't be steps to improve it. Colorado's Bustang system is a state-wide system offering reasonable intercity transit with 3-6 round trips per day to Denver from Colorado Springs, Grand Junction and Fort Collins, plus Bustang Outrider offering daily or three-day-a-week service to a bunch of much smaller centres like Lamar, Craig and Alamosa.
Or an even better example is BC Transit, which provides both local and regional service. As an example, the South Okanagan-Similkameen service connects the central city of Penticton (35,000) with over a dozen smaller towns, over a distance of over 120 km from the northmost to the southmost. Places like Naramata and West Bench, which have about 1000 and 2000 people respectively have 4 or 5 round trips to Penticton per day. Okanagan Falls, which has about 2200 people has not only trips to Penticton but an internal circulator as well. (People in a town of 1000 don't actually need much transit for local trips, because they're within walking distance.) That's a decent baseline, one that allows people some ability to go into town to see the specialist or shop if they want.
I can't find numbers for BC Transit's smallest systems, but the systems in the metros (Kelowna, Abbotsford, Kamloops, Nanaimo and Prince George -- the first two are ~200K and the last 3 around ~100K people each, not big centres) have total subsidies on the order of $65-150 per capita as of last year, and I suspect that's high because it includes some post-COVID recovery money that should be replaced by fare revenue this year. And they're not amazing transit meccas or anything, but they got 2-4% transit mode share of commutes in 2021; the same share as metros like Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Portland or Seattle got in 2021. For somewhere between 20 and 40 cents per person per day.
posted by Superilla at 4:54 PM on October 5, 2023 [5 favorites]
My state has been trialing 'on-demand' bus services with fares the same as regular buses and trains (or lower) to try and reach areas where there is limited or no public transport and where there is also limited demand. I'd much prefer they stopped development in areas that don't have services and don't have services planned, but we are where we are for now and this seems better than nothing.
posted by dg at 9:07 PM on October 5, 2023
posted by dg at 9:07 PM on October 5, 2023
Lydia DePillis in the NYT yesterday, with How the Costs of Car Ownership Add Up:
Via Jenny Schuetz:
For millions of Americans, cars are a necessity — to get to work, to carry children around, to buy food. In recent memory, they’ve also never been as expensive to own.A line that jumps out at me is "For most, there is no alternative." The system is not designed to handle any change — lose the ability to drive because of injury, age, gas prices? Too bad. I notice that some people in this thread are cheerleading that lack of alternatives.
Via Jenny Schuetz:
Car dependent lifestyles are the predictable result of land use rules that prohibit (a) building homes, shops, & services near one another, (b) moderate-to-high density development that can be easily connected by mass transit (incl buses). Better land use could save people money.posted by daveliepmann at 10:08 AM on October 7, 2023 [3 favorites]
I notice that some people in this thread are cheerleading that lack of alternatives.
I don't think anyone is cheerleading the lack of alternatives. But I think that we can have better conversations when we understand and accept that everyone has different lives and also different life preferences. For example, you're not wrong that high density development is easier to engage with mass transit. But high density development is also problematic for a number of people, and I think that people are often justifiably defensive about the idea of being pushed into living in ways that will be detrimental to their mental or physical health.
And so like: yes, these ways of living were predicated on car (or previously in some cases, horse) dependency. But that doesn't necessarily mean they are absolutely bad.
For example, as someone with PTSD and agoraphobia, my own stress and negative health outcomes decreased markedly when I started living in a less dense neighborhood. It is physically and emotionally deeply helpful for me not to have people constantly walking on the street in front of my residence. That doesn't mean dense living areas are bad, but they're bad for me. Which I think plays into the next piece...
people who are trapped in car dependency experience this system, and the conclusion is that any change to car dependency must mean moving from a system where all the trips are by car to moving to a system where all the trips are by bike, or transit, or whatever is being discussed.
I think that your idea that it would be good to reduce dependency, and that it doesn't have to solve every use of cars in order to do so, is fundamentally a good one. But because this discussion is so emotionally fraught, I think that people often tend to get into it with absolutes. There are definitely people in the thread arguing that all car usage should be eliminated, and that makes people who *do* need them feel defensive and start arguing about how great it is. So the more we can avoid that, the more I think we can have a sincere conversation that's actually helpful on how we want to move forward (eviemath has some great suggestions above, for example) without people being afraid they're going to see the things they need being eliminated.
posted by corb at 10:32 AM on October 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
I don't think anyone is cheerleading the lack of alternatives. But I think that we can have better conversations when we understand and accept that everyone has different lives and also different life preferences. For example, you're not wrong that high density development is easier to engage with mass transit. But high density development is also problematic for a number of people, and I think that people are often justifiably defensive about the idea of being pushed into living in ways that will be detrimental to their mental or physical health.
And so like: yes, these ways of living were predicated on car (or previously in some cases, horse) dependency. But that doesn't necessarily mean they are absolutely bad.
For example, as someone with PTSD and agoraphobia, my own stress and negative health outcomes decreased markedly when I started living in a less dense neighborhood. It is physically and emotionally deeply helpful for me not to have people constantly walking on the street in front of my residence. That doesn't mean dense living areas are bad, but they're bad for me. Which I think plays into the next piece...
people who are trapped in car dependency experience this system, and the conclusion is that any change to car dependency must mean moving from a system where all the trips are by car to moving to a system where all the trips are by bike, or transit, or whatever is being discussed.
I think that your idea that it would be good to reduce dependency, and that it doesn't have to solve every use of cars in order to do so, is fundamentally a good one. But because this discussion is so emotionally fraught, I think that people often tend to get into it with absolutes. There are definitely people in the thread arguing that all car usage should be eliminated, and that makes people who *do* need them feel defensive and start arguing about how great it is. So the more we can avoid that, the more I think we can have a sincere conversation that's actually helpful on how we want to move forward (eviemath has some great suggestions above, for example) without people being afraid they're going to see the things they need being eliminated.
posted by corb at 10:32 AM on October 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
Corb, your comparison to wanting to live in a remote place doesn't make a lick of sense. Nobody's saying YOU have to live in a dense place or that YOU in the sticks have to take the bus. Nobody's even saying that you can't choose to live in a place where a car is necessary. We're pleading to build alternatives where it's feasible. What scenario do you even have in your head?!
You have a point about my phrasing. Maybe instead of "cheerleading lack of" I should've written that you and Galvanic "demand unrealistic restrictions on" alternatives. This is the equivalent of complete obstruction. How else should we describe "you can have transit and bike infra but you can't take away from cars"? Or "Robert Moses was wrong to pave the waterfront so rich people could have a nice view while being chauffeured, therefore you can't to undo any of his mistakes"?
There are definitely people in the thread arguing that all car usage should be eliminated
I don't believe there are. Care to point any out?
The closest actual, existing attempts which come to mind are Pontevedra (as quoted above: a mayor who commutes by car says "reclaim urban spaces for pedestrians, but not ban cars altogether"), Paris (which per my school streets link above "has almost twice as many households with cars as Manhattan"), and a proposal in Berlin which has a dozen carve-outs (taxis, carshares, disabilities...) which already address your objections.
posted by daveliepmann at 11:33 AM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
You have a point about my phrasing. Maybe instead of "cheerleading lack of" I should've written that you and Galvanic "demand unrealistic restrictions on" alternatives. This is the equivalent of complete obstruction. How else should we describe "you can have transit and bike infra but you can't take away from cars"? Or "Robert Moses was wrong to pave the waterfront so rich people could have a nice view while being chauffeured, therefore you can't to undo any of his mistakes"?
There are definitely people in the thread arguing that all car usage should be eliminated
I don't believe there are. Care to point any out?
The closest actual, existing attempts which come to mind are Pontevedra (as quoted above: a mayor who commutes by car says "reclaim urban spaces for pedestrians, but not ban cars altogether"), Paris (which per my school streets link above "has almost twice as many households with cars as Manhattan"), and a proposal in Berlin which has a dozen carve-outs (taxis, carshares, disabilities...) which already address your objections.
posted by daveliepmann at 11:33 AM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
I don't believe there are. Care to point any out?
So here are some comments that read to me in that way, though the users may not have meant them to read that way. (In this thread, there have definitely been worse ones in other threads). They tend to fall into two categories: first, people arguing for complete cut out of cars from public spaces, and second, people arguing for punishing, financially penalizing, or making things worse for car drivers who continue to use cars.
probably the only way to make el camino real not a blasted hellscape is to close it to cars altogether.
If they're going to insist on using cars, they should be pressured into using smaller, slower, cleaner, quieter cars. And every time they drive or park, they should help pay for local public transit. Every road should be a toll road. Every on-street parking spot should be metered. Every time they go over the local speed limit, their car should squeal on them.
You need sticks to get people out of cars the same way Kurt Tucholsky wrote about in the domain of real estate
I think, using my most charitable interpretation, that to non-car users, these things don't read as intimidating. Often people think of them as "removing existing subsidies". But to me, they do - it reads that people like me should be excluded from public space, or financially penalized in ways that would be impossible for those of us who don't make large salaries. Because some of us are barely making it as it is. Any kind of further penalties on car users are going to be easy for wealthy people and nearly impossible for poorer ones. People may feel that this car world was created because of subsidies, but I think we can't have an honest conversation about it if we aren't admitting that the removal of those things in some of the ways described would completely bar car use for the poor who can't afford for every road to be a toll road, or for gas prices to radically increase, or to have to pay for parking every time they park.
posted by corb at 12:44 PM on October 7, 2023
So here are some comments that read to me in that way, though the users may not have meant them to read that way. (In this thread, there have definitely been worse ones in other threads). They tend to fall into two categories: first, people arguing for complete cut out of cars from public spaces, and second, people arguing for punishing, financially penalizing, or making things worse for car drivers who continue to use cars.
probably the only way to make el camino real not a blasted hellscape is to close it to cars altogether.
If they're going to insist on using cars, they should be pressured into using smaller, slower, cleaner, quieter cars. And every time they drive or park, they should help pay for local public transit. Every road should be a toll road. Every on-street parking spot should be metered. Every time they go over the local speed limit, their car should squeal on them.
You need sticks to get people out of cars the same way Kurt Tucholsky wrote about in the domain of real estate
I think, using my most charitable interpretation, that to non-car users, these things don't read as intimidating. Often people think of them as "removing existing subsidies". But to me, they do - it reads that people like me should be excluded from public space, or financially penalized in ways that would be impossible for those of us who don't make large salaries. Because some of us are barely making it as it is. Any kind of further penalties on car users are going to be easy for wealthy people and nearly impossible for poorer ones. People may feel that this car world was created because of subsidies, but I think we can't have an honest conversation about it if we aren't admitting that the removal of those things in some of the ways described would completely bar car use for the poor who can't afford for every road to be a toll road, or for gas prices to radically increase, or to have to pay for parking every time they park.
posted by corb at 12:44 PM on October 7, 2023
I think, using my most charitable interpretation, that to non-car users, these things don't read as intimidating. Often people think of them as "removing existing subsidies". But to me, they do - it reads that people like me should be excluded from public space, or financially penalized in ways that would be impossible for those of us who don't make large salaries. Because some of us are barely making it as it is. Any kind of further penalties on car users are going to be easy for wealthy people and nearly impossible for poorer ones. People may feel that this car world was created because of subsidies, but I think we can't have an honest conversation about it if we aren't admitting that the removal of those things in some of the ways described would completely bar car use for the poor who can't afford for every road to be a toll road, or for gas prices to radically increase, or to have to pay for parking every time they park.
Why are you pretending the middle class is poor? There are already people that are too poor to drive, or who can't drive because of their disabilities and you're arguing to keep them from having better free and cheap alternatives because you don't want the subsidies to your lifestyle removed. Why, in your love of having an honest conversation, do the people below you on the totem pole never come up? People poorer than you are paying for parking they don't use with every single purchase they make, so that you can have it for free. People poorer than you are paying for your cheap gas prices with their lungs and in some cases -- especially for those in other countries much poorer than you -- with their lives. People poorer than you are sitting in a bus, stuck behind your car, because you don't want to pay the cost of your congestion. People poorer than you are paying taxes for infrastructure you drive on freely and they don't.
I do not want a single person forced out of their car; I want every person who is in a car to take full responsibility for their choices, and if that cost is too high for them, then I want great alternative options for them to make better choices. Particularly because if those options can be great it will also help all of the people who are the poorest, and most vulnerable in society.
PS: Car users will kill 40,000 people in the US this year, many of them not in cars, and will face no legal ramifications for these murders unless they are obscenely incompetent. But I'm glad you found a way to be charitable enough to read a reasonable discussion about how we should build a city as not "intimidating".
posted by Superilla at 7:55 PM on October 7, 2023 [3 favorites]
Why are you pretending the middle class is poor? There are already people that are too poor to drive, or who can't drive because of their disabilities and you're arguing to keep them from having better free and cheap alternatives because you don't want the subsidies to your lifestyle removed. Why, in your love of having an honest conversation, do the people below you on the totem pole never come up? People poorer than you are paying for parking they don't use with every single purchase they make, so that you can have it for free. People poorer than you are paying for your cheap gas prices with their lungs and in some cases -- especially for those in other countries much poorer than you -- with their lives. People poorer than you are sitting in a bus, stuck behind your car, because you don't want to pay the cost of your congestion. People poorer than you are paying taxes for infrastructure you drive on freely and they don't.
I do not want a single person forced out of their car; I want every person who is in a car to take full responsibility for their choices, and if that cost is too high for them, then I want great alternative options for them to make better choices. Particularly because if those options can be great it will also help all of the people who are the poorest, and most vulnerable in society.
PS: Car users will kill 40,000 people in the US this year, many of them not in cars, and will face no legal ramifications for these murders unless they are obscenely incompetent. But I'm glad you found a way to be charitable enough to read a reasonable discussion about how we should build a city as not "intimidating".
posted by Superilla at 7:55 PM on October 7, 2023 [3 favorites]
Why are you pretending the middle class is poor? There are already people that are too poor to drive, or who can't drive because of their disabilities and you're arguing to keep them from having better free and cheap alternatives because you don't want the subsidies to your lifestyle removed
So this is kind of an interesting rhetorical trick, which is assuming that you know what other people's economic and disability status is, because of the fact that they drive a car. As I said just upthread, I'm disabled to the point where public transit is not workable for me, and not that I should have to add this point in, but I'm far from middle class and haven't been above precariously employed for the past fifteen years. And using cars is not "my lifestyle", it's necessary to my mental and physical health.
You're making assumptions, because of what you think of - your mental associations - when you hear car, and that's probably affected by the class of people around you that you see driving. In fact, I don't own my own car currently, if I want to drive I need to use my partners' car or catch a mutual aid ride from someone. They, in turn, could not afford to purchase a car, and received their incredibly broken-down vehicle as a gift from people who found it too old and unsafe to drive. They then got parts from the junkyard to fix it so that they could have a vehicle. Because people who need cars - and yes, some people really, really do need cars - don't really have the luxury of just giving up, so they're going to try to find a way. This is in no way, shape, or form, how the middle class lives.
But, and this goes back to those Protestant ideas of morality that are baked into even progressive politics in the US, you assume that someone with a different view than you must be impure, must have worse positionality, because you are associating what you believe to be the correct beliefs with the most marginalized position. But it doesn't always work that way. People can be poor - even massively so - and still disagree with you, can be multiply marginalized and still disagree with you.
And you know what, whether intentional or not, it's kind of not great, to assume you know other people's life experiences and can speak for them. It's one of the things we generally agree we shouldn't do - unless, of course, god forbid, we're in a discussion about transit, at which point all rules are off the table. Just like I was having a thoughtful conversation about options here with another mefite, until I dared to mention that yes, actually it's not really great when you try to chase people out of their necessities of life in order to get your wish list through, and then all of a sudden it was "I hope you are crushed".
It's a massive, massive blind spot to assume no car users are poor just because the ones you know aren't. If you care about such things, I would suggest you re-examine your assumptions. But if not, if you just want to shout people down, by all means, go on doing what you're doing.
posted by corb at 9:45 PM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
So this is kind of an interesting rhetorical trick, which is assuming that you know what other people's economic and disability status is, because of the fact that they drive a car. As I said just upthread, I'm disabled to the point where public transit is not workable for me, and not that I should have to add this point in, but I'm far from middle class and haven't been above precariously employed for the past fifteen years. And using cars is not "my lifestyle", it's necessary to my mental and physical health.
You're making assumptions, because of what you think of - your mental associations - when you hear car, and that's probably affected by the class of people around you that you see driving. In fact, I don't own my own car currently, if I want to drive I need to use my partners' car or catch a mutual aid ride from someone. They, in turn, could not afford to purchase a car, and received their incredibly broken-down vehicle as a gift from people who found it too old and unsafe to drive. They then got parts from the junkyard to fix it so that they could have a vehicle. Because people who need cars - and yes, some people really, really do need cars - don't really have the luxury of just giving up, so they're going to try to find a way. This is in no way, shape, or form, how the middle class lives.
But, and this goes back to those Protestant ideas of morality that are baked into even progressive politics in the US, you assume that someone with a different view than you must be impure, must have worse positionality, because you are associating what you believe to be the correct beliefs with the most marginalized position. But it doesn't always work that way. People can be poor - even massively so - and still disagree with you, can be multiply marginalized and still disagree with you.
And you know what, whether intentional or not, it's kind of not great, to assume you know other people's life experiences and can speak for them. It's one of the things we generally agree we shouldn't do - unless, of course, god forbid, we're in a discussion about transit, at which point all rules are off the table. Just like I was having a thoughtful conversation about options here with another mefite, until I dared to mention that yes, actually it's not really great when you try to chase people out of their necessities of life in order to get your wish list through, and then all of a sudden it was "I hope you are crushed".
It's a massive, massive blind spot to assume no car users are poor just because the ones you know aren't. If you care about such things, I would suggest you re-examine your assumptions. But if not, if you just want to shout people down, by all means, go on doing what you're doing.
posted by corb at 9:45 PM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
Mod note: Several comments removed. If at this point you are not even actually talking about the post any more, but just grinding on attacking other members, please consider giving this thread a rest.
posted by taz (staff) at 11:17 PM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by taz (staff) at 11:17 PM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
One of the people the NYT profiled said they were forced to get a car because the bus is not reliable. Whether or not they bus shows up when it's supposed to; it seems on a quick google that (and please correct me if I'm wrong) the bus comes once an hour in this city of a million people. That's a timetable that's not even trying!
Wouldn't his situation be solved with a every-ten-minutes bus schedule? You know, like we have in the first world.
posted by daveliepmann at 10:28 AM on October 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
Wouldn't his situation be solved with a every-ten-minutes bus schedule? You know, like we have in the first world.
posted by daveliepmann at 10:28 AM on October 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
Wouldn't his situation be solved with a every-ten-minutes bus schedule? You know, like we have in the first world.
Yes, that’s going to work well in Montana.*
The continued lumping of everything under “car dependency” when it’s really “car necessity” and “car preference” is why I keep pointing out the inherently biased nature of discussions like this.
*I know you were talking about NYC. That’s part of the problem I’m highlighting.
PS Also, corb, great comment.
posted by Galvanic at 4:26 PM on October 9, 2023
Yes, that’s going to work well in Montana.*
The continued lumping of everything under “car dependency” when it’s really “car necessity” and “car preference” is why I keep pointing out the inherently biased nature of discussions like this.
*I know you were talking about NYC. That’s part of the problem I’m highlighting.
PS Also, corb, great comment.
posted by Galvanic at 4:26 PM on October 9, 2023
If an item is necessary for you, then you are dependent on it. One can also be dependent on something without it being necessary, eg. if it is one of a number of potential items that would meet your need but is the one that you have chosen, through personal preference or for whatever reason, to use.
I understand that you may have some personal bias or prejudice associated with the term dependency. It’s fine to say that some bit of phrasing comes across to you in a particular way - that is a statement about your experience, which you have the knowledge to make. What contravenes site guidelines is projecting that onto the rest of us and ascribing motives or moral judgements that, for at least most of us participating in this thread, are not ours and that we have repeatedly told you are not our motives or moral judgements.
posted by eviemath at 7:33 PM on October 9, 2023
I understand that you may have some personal bias or prejudice associated with the term dependency. It’s fine to say that some bit of phrasing comes across to you in a particular way - that is a statement about your experience, which you have the knowledge to make. What contravenes site guidelines is projecting that onto the rest of us and ascribing motives or moral judgements that, for at least most of us participating in this thread, are not ours and that we have repeatedly told you are not our motives or moral judgements.
posted by eviemath at 7:33 PM on October 9, 2023
If it was “car dependent” by itself, you’d have a point. But it’s not. It is, as I’ve pointed out, the entire litany of language in this discussion.
posted by Galvanic at 7:44 PM on October 9, 2023
posted by Galvanic at 7:44 PM on October 9, 2023
ascribing motives or moral judgements that, for at least most of us participating in this thread, are not ours and that we have repeatedly told you are not our motives or moral judgements.
I think it's difficult when people are all coming from different places; it's an unfortunate thing about the human experience that the most antagonizing thing said is often the thing that sticks in the memory, even if it's only a small percentage of the experience. The one terrible thing often makes people experience a whole day as bad. I do think a lot of people are trying in this thread, but it's difficult when statements are mixed.
You note that someone is dependent on something if it's necessary for them, but I find that statement kind of confusing in the idea of a lot of the rhetoric in the thread about "removing car dependency". For me, I would interpret the word 'dependency' as referring only to people who would prefer not to depend on that particular method, but do so because of lack of other options, rather than people who simply have no other options and no other options that could be created. If you think that people who need cars are dependent on them, do you mentally provide a carve-out for those people and work on other dependency, or do you ultimately want to remove those vehicles for those people as well? Sincere question, trying to understand your perspective.
One thing, however, that I've been thinking about as another option which would might be useful and might gain more consensus, is eliminating the ability for companies to demand employees must possess their own transportation in order to get a job. I was recently looking at job applications, and needed to eliminate a number of them since I don't possess my own transportation. If the idea is that companies need people who can move around, it would seem to me that those companies could be forced to provide all work-related transportation - which would also maybe reduce car trips, if employees weren't forced to own their own cars but could rely on shared company cars at work.
posted by corb at 10:21 PM on October 9, 2023
I think it's difficult when people are all coming from different places; it's an unfortunate thing about the human experience that the most antagonizing thing said is often the thing that sticks in the memory, even if it's only a small percentage of the experience. The one terrible thing often makes people experience a whole day as bad. I do think a lot of people are trying in this thread, but it's difficult when statements are mixed.
You note that someone is dependent on something if it's necessary for them, but I find that statement kind of confusing in the idea of a lot of the rhetoric in the thread about "removing car dependency". For me, I would interpret the word 'dependency' as referring only to people who would prefer not to depend on that particular method, but do so because of lack of other options, rather than people who simply have no other options and no other options that could be created. If you think that people who need cars are dependent on them, do you mentally provide a carve-out for those people and work on other dependency, or do you ultimately want to remove those vehicles for those people as well? Sincere question, trying to understand your perspective.
One thing, however, that I've been thinking about as another option which would might be useful and might gain more consensus, is eliminating the ability for companies to demand employees must possess their own transportation in order to get a job. I was recently looking at job applications, and needed to eliminate a number of them since I don't possess my own transportation. If the idea is that companies need people who can move around, it would seem to me that those companies could be forced to provide all work-related transportation - which would also maybe reduce car trips, if employees weren't forced to own their own cars but could rely on shared company cars at work.
posted by corb at 10:21 PM on October 9, 2023
people who simply have no other options and no other options that could be created.
It seems like you're asking whether people who must use a car and have no other option will be forced to give up their car. This is a paranoid nightmare scenario that has nothing to do with even the most stringent and aggressive car-independence strategies (in this thread and in political reality), all of which preserve the ability to drive a car when it is necessary or even just strongly preferred. What goes away is the universality of car-first, car-only, unrestricted car-everywhere policies.
posted by daveliepmann at 11:53 PM on October 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
It seems like you're asking whether people who must use a car and have no other option will be forced to give up their car. This is a paranoid nightmare scenario that has nothing to do with even the most stringent and aggressive car-independence strategies (in this thread and in political reality), all of which preserve the ability to drive a car when it is necessary or even just strongly preferred. What goes away is the universality of car-first, car-only, unrestricted car-everywhere policies.
posted by daveliepmann at 11:53 PM on October 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
Galvanic, the "city of a million people" I was talking about is Jacksonville, FL.
As to "preference", eviemath is right about "necessity", and the incredibly elementary point about "preference" is that people's preferences change when you build nice infrastructure for other modes. Jacksonville could do that. It would be good. I wonder whether you have anything to say about that instead of inventing buses-in-Montana straw men.
Anyway, the widow of the 26th cyclist killed this year in NYC wrote a call to action in Streetsblog:
As to "preference", eviemath is right about "necessity", and the incredibly elementary point about "preference" is that people's preferences change when you build nice infrastructure for other modes. Jacksonville could do that. It would be good. I wonder whether you have anything to say about that instead of inventing buses-in-Montana straw men.
Anyway, the widow of the 26th cyclist killed this year in NYC wrote a call to action in Streetsblog:
Mayor Adams doesn’t care if it’s safe [to cycle in NYC]. He doesn’t care if families are afraid to bring their children to school. He doesn’t care if bike lanes are filled with double-parked cars. He doesn’t care if trucks kill even more of us. If he did, he’d stop talking about it and actually build the infrastructure that keeps us safe.posted by daveliepmann at 1:50 AM on October 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
The relevant concept on the cycling side of preference shift is Geller's Four Types of Cyclist, expanded upon by Dill & McNeil (paper). I consider Dill's summary to be 101 material. A longer article with infra examples.
1) Strong and Fearless: will cycle with limited or no bicycle-specific infrastructure (~1-4%)
2) Enthused and Confident: will cycle if some infrastructure is in place (~7-9%)
3) Interested but Concerned: will cycle only if high-quality bicycle infrastructure is in place (~50-60%)
4) No Way, No How: unwilling to bicycle regardless of infra ( ~30-40%)
In my twenties I was a 1. After a few near-death experiences I'm a 2. Politically I care about 3 because I live in a society.
posted by daveliepmann at 3:31 AM on October 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
1) Strong and Fearless: will cycle with limited or no bicycle-specific infrastructure (~1-4%)
2) Enthused and Confident: will cycle if some infrastructure is in place (~7-9%)
3) Interested but Concerned: will cycle only if high-quality bicycle infrastructure is in place (~50-60%)
4) No Way, No How: unwilling to bicycle regardless of infra ( ~30-40%)
In my twenties I was a 1. After a few near-death experiences I'm a 2. Politically I care about 3 because I live in a society.
posted by daveliepmann at 3:31 AM on October 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
You’re dependent on something to meet a need if you don’t have a choice to meet the need in another way. I oppose car dependency because I want people to have choices. As many of us have said, I enjoy driving (except in high traffic commuting contexts. Conflating opposition to car dependency with opposition to cars is the same as conflating opposition to toxic masculinity with opposition to masculinity.
posted by eviemath at 7:42 AM on October 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by eviemath at 7:42 AM on October 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
One thing, however, that I've been thinking about as another option which would might be useful and might gain more consensus, is eliminating the ability for companies to demand employees must possess their own transportation in order to get a job. I was recently looking at job applications, and needed to eliminate a number of them since I don't possess my own transportation. If the idea is that companies need people who can move around, it would seem to me that those companies could be forced to provide all work-related transportation - which would also maybe reduce car trips, if employees weren't forced to own their own cars but could rely on shared company cars at work.
Absolutely, 100% second this! My partner (who doesn’t drive, so even though we have a car in the household, would need timing between our work schedules to work out for any job not within walkable distance, which can’t be guaranteed for me) also had this issue during a job search after moving to our rural area. And silly things like that most of the job postings required splitting time between two locations, with one not being on the bus line. (As noted above, our local bus line is a literal line, up and down the main route hourly or slightly less frequently on weekdays, no diversions.)
posted by eviemath at 8:03 AM on October 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
Absolutely, 100% second this! My partner (who doesn’t drive, so even though we have a car in the household, would need timing between our work schedules to work out for any job not within walkable distance, which can’t be guaranteed for me) also had this issue during a job search after moving to our rural area. And silly things like that most of the job postings required splitting time between two locations, with one not being on the bus line. (As noted above, our local bus line is a literal line, up and down the main route hourly or slightly less frequently on weekdays, no diversions.)
posted by eviemath at 8:03 AM on October 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
Perhaps one of the other issues here is that I, and I think the FPP video guy and many other posters, are thinking of car dependency as being a structural thing - that our built environment is structured to make cars often the only feasible option for meeting transportation needs; while corb you seem to be interpreting it as a personal thing - that a given individual is or is not dependent on their car for transportation. In the first case, the impact of the structural problem on individuals is something that many of us care about, in addition to the collective impacts on climate and air quality and death or injury rates and affordability and all those other population-scale considerations.
But because it’s a structural problem, it’s something that we have to solve collectively: through what transportation infrastructure we build and maintain, what regulations we impose or tax credits or direct investment we give to different transportation methods, what development patterns in terms of siting and types of housing and places of employment and services we foster through the combination of incentives and regulations applied by local through federal governments.
As well as what accommodations we require be provided under our current structures, such as whether or not we let employers require job applicants have private vehicles, or set schedules that don’t accommodate current public transportation options, or absence policies that also don’t accommodate current transportation realities, etc. Or, in my area, that the provincial government services offices have all been moved out of town centres to places that are hard to get to without private cars, or that the clinics for people who don’t have family doctors are “after hours”, running past the time of the last bus. One aspect of addressing structural car dependency is providing feasible transportation options. Another aspect is reorganizing or addressing the sources of what people’s transportation needs are in the first place.
posted by eviemath at 8:21 AM on October 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
But because it’s a structural problem, it’s something that we have to solve collectively: through what transportation infrastructure we build and maintain, what regulations we impose or tax credits or direct investment we give to different transportation methods, what development patterns in terms of siting and types of housing and places of employment and services we foster through the combination of incentives and regulations applied by local through federal governments.
As well as what accommodations we require be provided under our current structures, such as whether or not we let employers require job applicants have private vehicles, or set schedules that don’t accommodate current public transportation options, or absence policies that also don’t accommodate current transportation realities, etc. Or, in my area, that the provincial government services offices have all been moved out of town centres to places that are hard to get to without private cars, or that the clinics for people who don’t have family doctors are “after hours”, running past the time of the last bus. One aspect of addressing structural car dependency is providing feasible transportation options. Another aspect is reorganizing or addressing the sources of what people’s transportation needs are in the first place.
posted by eviemath at 8:21 AM on October 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
Part of what makes this a complex issue is that there are not only structural issues at play - these can be fixed given the political will and the money. There are also cultural issues involved and the other type of dependency - people are so accustomed to thinking of cars as the only viable means of transport that they simply don't consider anything else, even when there are far better alternatives.
In my city, there is a (somewhat limited) light rail service that operates on trams at each stop every seven minutes during the day and something like 15 minutes overnight. While it is limited in where it reaches, there are good 'park n ride' facilities where people can drive in from the outer suburbs and park there and use the trams from there. The thing is, the areas the trams serve really well are the popular beaches and a few other places. But people will deliberately drive to and spend 30 minutes driving around looking for a parking space rather than even consider the tram. It's not because they don't know about it, it's because they don't believe it's a viable alternative, despite it being actually more convenient (tram stops are closer to the beach than you are likely to get a parking space). People complain they're too dirty (they're absolutely spotless), crowded (It's very rare to not get a seat at normal times) and inconvenient (did I mention the every-7-minute schedule?).
Many people just don't want to consider alternatives other than driving their own car everywhere. Changing their minds is a task I don't even know how to do.
posted by dg at 3:15 PM on October 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
In my city, there is a (somewhat limited) light rail service that operates on trams at each stop every seven minutes during the day and something like 15 minutes overnight. While it is limited in where it reaches, there are good 'park n ride' facilities where people can drive in from the outer suburbs and park there and use the trams from there. The thing is, the areas the trams serve really well are the popular beaches and a few other places. But people will deliberately drive to
Many people just don't want to consider alternatives other than driving their own car everywhere. Changing their minds is a task I don't even know how to do.
posted by dg at 3:15 PM on October 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
I think it's a requirement to change their minds because a model where everyone drives a car everywhere even when there are better alternatives is not sustainable. Billions of taxpayers dollars are being spent everywhere to prop up a personal preference that is hurting the environment and hurting the economy. I'm a car enthusiast and I hate car dependency in the way it manifests almost everywhere - too many people choose to be car-dependant even when it goes against their own best interests and against the needs of the community.
I absolutely do not believe cars should be eliminated or anything remotely like that. Cars have their place and I enjoy driving my car when the conditions are right, but I hate what driving has become in most cities. I hate that politicians everywhere are not prepared to take action in the best interests of their constituents instead of pandering to the impossible dream of everyone being able to drive around wherever they want whenever they want and never get caught in traffic or be stuck circling to find a parking spot.
posted by dg at 5:04 PM on October 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
I absolutely do not believe cars should be eliminated or anything remotely like that. Cars have their place and I enjoy driving my car when the conditions are right, but I hate what driving has become in most cities. I hate that politicians everywhere are not prepared to take action in the best interests of their constituents instead of pandering to the impossible dream of everyone being able to drive around wherever they want whenever they want and never get caught in traffic or be stuck circling to find a parking spot.
posted by dg at 5:04 PM on October 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
Mod note: One deleted. Before commenting, please re-assess whether you are commenting with the intention to productively add to the thread or if you are simply arguing/picking at user's points. It's important to keep things on track, derails will be deleted.
posted by travelingthyme (staff) at 5:06 PM on October 10, 2023
posted by travelingthyme (staff) at 5:06 PM on October 10, 2023
When you’re talking about choice, I think you’re no longer talking about car dependency. I don’t think that getting into conservative style talking points like how Reaganites used to talk about so-called “welfare dependency” as if needing income assistance was a lifestyle choice is accurate or useful. Yes, there’s a cultural component to normalizing car use over public transportation options, but even that is more of a structural issue than an individual issue: solutions involve taking school kids to field trips on public transit (properly chaperoned, of course, as with any school field trip) so that it’s not an unknown, positive advertising campaigns to promote use of the public option, etc. And addressing income inequality in material ways would also go a long way toward addressing the classism behind much of the cultural prejudices against using public transportation that I’ve witnessed.
posted by eviemath at 5:59 PM on October 10, 2023
posted by eviemath at 5:59 PM on October 10, 2023
Part of what makes this a complex issue is that there are not only structural issues at play - these can be fixed given the political will and the money. There are also cultural issues involved and the other type of dependency - people are so accustomed to thinking of cars as the only viable means of transport that they simply don't consider anything else, even when there are far better alternatives....
So I think, especially in relation to eviemath's point above about structural vs personal dependency, that this kind of speaks to what I would actually say is a two-axis problem.
Before going into what I see as the issues of the axis, I want to acknowledge that I think we're all on the same page here that the current society we live in was envisioned and structured on the expectation that personally owned vehicles would continue into the future - and also largely designed during a time of cheap gas prices. We can have a lot of opinions about whether it was a good idea or not to do so, but we live in the world that is, not the world that could have been if different decisions had been made nearly a century ago. These are absolutely structural issues, I do agree there.
There are, however, some questions that I think the axis of our disagreement is centered around.
First: To what extent should we make people's lives worse to address this problem? I see this as a major source of disagreement; I recognize that many people concerned about structural issues *are* in fact also concerned about the impact on individuals, but I think we disagree as to how much individuals should be harmed in order to come up with the collective solution. This is probably the strongest point of disagreement for me: I think we as a society should be willing to spend money on these issues, but I don't think that the money or regulatory effects should be used to make people's lives worse. Life is bad enough for the working class under this post capitalist hell we live in. This is why I support positive rather than negative solutions.
Secondly: Assuming we grant that we aren't trying to make existing options worse, are there, or can there be, better alternatives to cars?
This is an issue that I see going back and forth in the thread. I think a lot of the hard conversations are kind of being glossed over by "well, cars are a personal preference", and I think that if we're going to be serious about this, we need to be really up front about the fact that public transportation as it exists can't solve every problem and that preferences are an expression of unmet needs and are not necessarily invalid.
You mention, dg, about the travel to the beach, complaints about things being dirty, crowded, and inconvenient, and believe that they're being disingenuous. But what I hear is a willingness to dismiss other people's concerns, rather than address them. I think if we're going to examine this, we need to look at people's statements of their interests as valid, and go from there to how to actually solve the issues.
So for example: people saying that public transportation is dirty. That's not really addressable by saying "well, it's clean enough for me, so it should be clean enough for you." That needs to have the question asked "What do you mean by dirty? What would it mean for something to be clean enough?" And to really listen to the answer. Does it mean that the transit smells? That people find trash unsightly? That people are afraid of germs, fleas, or bedbugs?
Or 'crowded'. What does it mean for public transit to be crowded? That answer is going to be different for someone who grew up in, say, Nebraska, versus someone who grew up in New York City. For some people, public transit is too crowded if they can't find a seat where they aren't sitting next to anyone. For others, public transit is too crowded if they are forced to physically touch someone else.
Or 'inconvenient'. Inconvenient can't just be measured in 'how often do the trains come'. Inconvenient also needs to be measured in the way that people mean when they say it. Do they mean that it's difficult to bring the accoutrements that they feel are necessary to beach enjoyment (chairs, blankets, coolers, etc) when they have to take the train? Do they mean that the train requires them to walk further than they feel comfortable with? That they can't have conversations without fearing they'll be overheard?
I think that some of those problems are genuinely solveable by making transit nicer, cleaner, and more spacious, but it would require not looking down on people for having these needs. For example: there's no reason that trains in America couldn't operate somewhat like European trains and have private sections, little enclosed rooms that you could sit in with your family or friends and be away from other people. We don't do it because it's not the cheapest way to transport the largest amount of people, and because a lot of advocates are dismissive of the idea that privacy has a public value.
But also I think a lot of the problems with public transit are the problems of a broken society; fixing the society would go a long way towards fixing what makes people not want to use transit. (I'm sorry to be all 'capitalism delenda est' on this one, but it's a big one). What if all people had access to clean, well maintained public bathrooms, showers, hygiene supplies, and washing machines and storage of goods? What if pest control like fleas and bedbugs was taken as a city wide problem and eradicated at a city level, rather than being something only the wealthy can afford? What if there were free, easily accessible health clinics so that people weren't worried about disease on public transport? What if the beaches had cool drinks and tasty food available for everyone on location so they didn't have to bring their own in order to try to save money? What if picnic blankets and chairs were available for everyone who wanted to use them?
I know the argument will be that I'm talking crazy here, but these are the kind of radical solutions I think would make a real dent. It might not eliminate cars being better for some people, but it would go a long way on making it better for everyone.
posted by corb at 6:05 PM on October 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
So I think, especially in relation to eviemath's point above about structural vs personal dependency, that this kind of speaks to what I would actually say is a two-axis problem.
Before going into what I see as the issues of the axis, I want to acknowledge that I think we're all on the same page here that the current society we live in was envisioned and structured on the expectation that personally owned vehicles would continue into the future - and also largely designed during a time of cheap gas prices. We can have a lot of opinions about whether it was a good idea or not to do so, but we live in the world that is, not the world that could have been if different decisions had been made nearly a century ago. These are absolutely structural issues, I do agree there.
There are, however, some questions that I think the axis of our disagreement is centered around.
First: To what extent should we make people's lives worse to address this problem? I see this as a major source of disagreement; I recognize that many people concerned about structural issues *are* in fact also concerned about the impact on individuals, but I think we disagree as to how much individuals should be harmed in order to come up with the collective solution. This is probably the strongest point of disagreement for me: I think we as a society should be willing to spend money on these issues, but I don't think that the money or regulatory effects should be used to make people's lives worse. Life is bad enough for the working class under this post capitalist hell we live in. This is why I support positive rather than negative solutions.
Secondly: Assuming we grant that we aren't trying to make existing options worse, are there, or can there be, better alternatives to cars?
This is an issue that I see going back and forth in the thread. I think a lot of the hard conversations are kind of being glossed over by "well, cars are a personal preference", and I think that if we're going to be serious about this, we need to be really up front about the fact that public transportation as it exists can't solve every problem and that preferences are an expression of unmet needs and are not necessarily invalid.
You mention, dg, about the travel to the beach, complaints about things being dirty, crowded, and inconvenient, and believe that they're being disingenuous. But what I hear is a willingness to dismiss other people's concerns, rather than address them. I think if we're going to examine this, we need to look at people's statements of their interests as valid, and go from there to how to actually solve the issues.
So for example: people saying that public transportation is dirty. That's not really addressable by saying "well, it's clean enough for me, so it should be clean enough for you." That needs to have the question asked "What do you mean by dirty? What would it mean for something to be clean enough?" And to really listen to the answer. Does it mean that the transit smells? That people find trash unsightly? That people are afraid of germs, fleas, or bedbugs?
Or 'crowded'. What does it mean for public transit to be crowded? That answer is going to be different for someone who grew up in, say, Nebraska, versus someone who grew up in New York City. For some people, public transit is too crowded if they can't find a seat where they aren't sitting next to anyone. For others, public transit is too crowded if they are forced to physically touch someone else.
Or 'inconvenient'. Inconvenient can't just be measured in 'how often do the trains come'. Inconvenient also needs to be measured in the way that people mean when they say it. Do they mean that it's difficult to bring the accoutrements that they feel are necessary to beach enjoyment (chairs, blankets, coolers, etc) when they have to take the train? Do they mean that the train requires them to walk further than they feel comfortable with? That they can't have conversations without fearing they'll be overheard?
I think that some of those problems are genuinely solveable by making transit nicer, cleaner, and more spacious, but it would require not looking down on people for having these needs. For example: there's no reason that trains in America couldn't operate somewhat like European trains and have private sections, little enclosed rooms that you could sit in with your family or friends and be away from other people. We don't do it because it's not the cheapest way to transport the largest amount of people, and because a lot of advocates are dismissive of the idea that privacy has a public value.
But also I think a lot of the problems with public transit are the problems of a broken society; fixing the society would go a long way towards fixing what makes people not want to use transit. (I'm sorry to be all 'capitalism delenda est' on this one, but it's a big one). What if all people had access to clean, well maintained public bathrooms, showers, hygiene supplies, and washing machines and storage of goods? What if pest control like fleas and bedbugs was taken as a city wide problem and eradicated at a city level, rather than being something only the wealthy can afford? What if there were free, easily accessible health clinics so that people weren't worried about disease on public transport? What if the beaches had cool drinks and tasty food available for everyone on location so they didn't have to bring their own in order to try to save money? What if picnic blankets and chairs were available for everyone who wanted to use them?
I know the argument will be that I'm talking crazy here, but these are the kind of radical solutions I think would make a real dent. It might not eliminate cars being better for some people, but it would go a long way on making it better for everyone.
posted by corb at 6:05 PM on October 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
To what extent should we make people's lives worse to address this problem?
I certainly don't advocate for making anyone's life worse. This is not a zero-sum game and it's absolutely possible to make everyone's life better.
Assuming we grant that we aren't trying to make existing options worse, are there, or can there be, better alternatives to cars?
There's no doubt that public transport can't meet all needs. Depending on where you live, there are likely lots of places where it's simply not viable to reach everyone with public transport, particularly in rural areas. I don't believe it's financially viable at all to provide public transportation to 100% of the population and that should not be our aim. In some limited situations, that's going to prevent some people from living in some areas. If you're one of the ~500k people living in remote areas in Australia, you won't be seeing a bus at the end of your street and, if you can't access car transport, living in those areas may not be feasible for you. A country as large and with a population spread so thin as Australia is never going to be 100% accessible.
I guess I'm using 'car dependency' in a somewhat vague way, by including people that don't physically have to use a car, but choose to even when there are suitable alternatives available. I feel like they are dependent on cars, albeit through choice rather than necessity.
When I talk about the local light rail system and people refusing to use it for reasons I believe are invalid, this is the service I'm talking about. There are a couple of photos down the page a bit under the heading 'Rolling Stock' - these are obviously stock photos, but they are absolutely accurate in terms of how the trams look inside and, except they're now covered in advertising, outside. This is a service that's only been operating since 2014, but it's also very well maintained. The broader heavy rail system often uses older rolling stock, but the appearance and standard are largely similar. Bus services in most areas use similar-appearing vehicles and are equally clean and tidy. I'm not saying 'clean enough for me', I'm saying the services are objectively clean to the extent there's no valid argument otherwise apart from 'eww, invisible people germs'. Public transport in this region is far cleaner than most people's cars.
Crowding on public transport can be a real issue for lots of valid reasons. There are certainly times when trams, buses and trains here are crowded to the extent you may not be able to avoid touching another person. While that is rare and restricted to the very worst of peak periods and major events, it's an impression that is understandable, despite only applying to small periods of time. Yes, people have different levels of tolerance to crowding and there has to be an understanding of what the community will accept and why in planning public transport systems. Most of the time here, you can find a seat on public transport, although often sitting beside another person. Maybe more people would be willing to take a train if they were sitting in a compartment with no more than six or so people, maybe not. There is a huge cost in doing that, of course, due to the dramatically lower capacity of such trains and, I suspect, longer times required at stations to get everyone on and off.
I agree convenience comes in many forms. In your example about taking all the things we want to the beach, I think there's a definite perception that this is markedly harder via tram and having to unload your car then get on a tram and unload everything again is a definite difference. Convincing people that, overall, they're better off than circling 30 minutes for a car park, then often having to walk far further than they would from then to the nearest tram stop is a difficult task and 'because it makes life better for everyone' isn't going to cut it.
But also I think a lot of the problems with public transit are the problems of a broken society; fixing the society would go a long way towards fixing what makes people not want to use transit.
Agree absolutely - the negative attitudes towards public transport are as much a symptom as they are a problem in themselves.
posted by dg at 7:29 PM on October 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
I certainly don't advocate for making anyone's life worse. This is not a zero-sum game and it's absolutely possible to make everyone's life better.
Assuming we grant that we aren't trying to make existing options worse, are there, or can there be, better alternatives to cars?
There's no doubt that public transport can't meet all needs. Depending on where you live, there are likely lots of places where it's simply not viable to reach everyone with public transport, particularly in rural areas. I don't believe it's financially viable at all to provide public transportation to 100% of the population and that should not be our aim. In some limited situations, that's going to prevent some people from living in some areas. If you're one of the ~500k people living in remote areas in Australia, you won't be seeing a bus at the end of your street and, if you can't access car transport, living in those areas may not be feasible for you. A country as large and with a population spread so thin as Australia is never going to be 100% accessible.
I guess I'm using 'car dependency' in a somewhat vague way, by including people that don't physically have to use a car, but choose to even when there are suitable alternatives available. I feel like they are dependent on cars, albeit through choice rather than necessity.
When I talk about the local light rail system and people refusing to use it for reasons I believe are invalid, this is the service I'm talking about. There are a couple of photos down the page a bit under the heading 'Rolling Stock' - these are obviously stock photos, but they are absolutely accurate in terms of how the trams look inside and, except they're now covered in advertising, outside. This is a service that's only been operating since 2014, but it's also very well maintained. The broader heavy rail system often uses older rolling stock, but the appearance and standard are largely similar. Bus services in most areas use similar-appearing vehicles and are equally clean and tidy. I'm not saying 'clean enough for me', I'm saying the services are objectively clean to the extent there's no valid argument otherwise apart from 'eww, invisible people germs'. Public transport in this region is far cleaner than most people's cars.
Crowding on public transport can be a real issue for lots of valid reasons. There are certainly times when trams, buses and trains here are crowded to the extent you may not be able to avoid touching another person. While that is rare and restricted to the very worst of peak periods and major events, it's an impression that is understandable, despite only applying to small periods of time. Yes, people have different levels of tolerance to crowding and there has to be an understanding of what the community will accept and why in planning public transport systems. Most of the time here, you can find a seat on public transport, although often sitting beside another person. Maybe more people would be willing to take a train if they were sitting in a compartment with no more than six or so people, maybe not. There is a huge cost in doing that, of course, due to the dramatically lower capacity of such trains and, I suspect, longer times required at stations to get everyone on and off.
I agree convenience comes in many forms. In your example about taking all the things we want to the beach, I think there's a definite perception that this is markedly harder via tram and having to unload your car then get on a tram and unload everything again is a definite difference. Convincing people that, overall, they're better off than circling 30 minutes for a car park, then often having to walk far further than they would from then to the nearest tram stop is a difficult task and 'because it makes life better for everyone' isn't going to cut it.
But also I think a lot of the problems with public transit are the problems of a broken society; fixing the society would go a long way towards fixing what makes people not want to use transit.
Agree absolutely - the negative attitudes towards public transport are as much a symptom as they are a problem in themselves.
posted by dg at 7:29 PM on October 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
So for example: people saying that public transportation is dirty. That's not really addressable by saying "well, it's clean enough for me, so it should be clean enough for you." That needs to have the question asked "What do you mean by dirty? What would it mean for something to be clean enough?" And to really listen to the answer. Does it mean that the transit smells? That people find trash unsightly? That people are afraid of germs, fleas, or bedbugs?
Overall, I agree with your points about actually listening and addressing people’s concerns about public transportation. To add to this specific section, however: in my experience, there are some people who would say that public transportation is dirty even if it had attendants that wiped down each seat in between every use, picked up every potential bit of litter as soon as it was dropped, etc. “Dirty” can be an actual cleanliness concern, but it also not infrequently stands in for racism or classism. Like white folks in the 1960s who complained about Black kids in pools or using segregated water fountains making their water dirty. I mostly hear this from white folks from relatively financially secure backgrounds who aren’t familiar with local transit, but bring this up as a reason why they wouldn’t want to use it. It’s an implicit bias-based preemptive disgust response. Actual transit users I know do occasionally complain about cleanliness, but tend to put it in context, and are able to clarify what, specifically, is dirty and how it could be fixed.
posted by eviemath at 7:48 PM on October 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
Overall, I agree with your points about actually listening and addressing people’s concerns about public transportation. To add to this specific section, however: in my experience, there are some people who would say that public transportation is dirty even if it had attendants that wiped down each seat in between every use, picked up every potential bit of litter as soon as it was dropped, etc. “Dirty” can be an actual cleanliness concern, but it also not infrequently stands in for racism or classism. Like white folks in the 1960s who complained about Black kids in pools or using segregated water fountains making their water dirty. I mostly hear this from white folks from relatively financially secure backgrounds who aren’t familiar with local transit, but bring this up as a reason why they wouldn’t want to use it. It’s an implicit bias-based preemptive disgust response. Actual transit users I know do occasionally complain about cleanliness, but tend to put it in context, and are able to clarify what, specifically, is dirty and how it could be fixed.
posted by eviemath at 7:48 PM on October 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
Another detail that I’ve seen dissuade people from using public transportation options is lack of knowledge: of what the routes are, what the schedules are, how much it costs, where or how to buy tickets, etc. Fortunately that is a more easily solved issue, with better signage, cell phone apps for information and ticket purchases (in addition to well-signed kiosks at each station), free student transit passes and info in high schools and postsecondary educational institutions, partnering with larger employers to include transit passes as an employee perk and have route and schedule information available at the workplace, gps systems in the busses or trains paired with signs that display time to next bus/train/whatever, etc.
posted by eviemath at 7:54 PM on October 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by eviemath at 7:54 PM on October 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
It's pretty rich to write paragraph after paragraph wringing hands about degrading car driver's precious experience even one iota, when cars make things so awful for everyone else. Just completely blind to the copious costs to anyone else. Car culture demands that we ignore all externalities.
posted by daveliepmann at 11:41 PM on October 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by daveliepmann at 11:41 PM on October 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
Nobody is 'wringing hands about degrading car driver's precious experience' and saying they are is being blind to the actual conversation happening right in front of your eyes.
If we could go back in time and develop a perfect world, maybe there would never have been a need for cars in the first place. If we could magic up a few trillion dollars we could design and build the perfect public transit system everywhere. There are lots of 'if only' scenarios and none of them matter. The fact is we live in the world we have and that means, for many people, there's no viable solution that doesn't involve cars. What we can do is work towards eliminating cars where they don't make sense, such as in the centre of cities and in new development. We can stop prioritising development for cars and put that money and effort towards improving public transit. There are lots of things that can realistically be done given we live in the actual world as it actually is. If you've got a viable solution to all people being able to be where they need to be that doesn't involve cars, put it forward. I'm all ears.
posted by dg at 3:27 PM on October 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
If we could go back in time and develop a perfect world, maybe there would never have been a need for cars in the first place. If we could magic up a few trillion dollars we could design and build the perfect public transit system everywhere. There are lots of 'if only' scenarios and none of them matter. The fact is we live in the world we have and that means, for many people, there's no viable solution that doesn't involve cars. What we can do is work towards eliminating cars where they don't make sense, such as in the centre of cities and in new development. We can stop prioritising development for cars and put that money and effort towards improving public transit. There are lots of things that can realistically be done given we live in the actual world as it actually is. If you've got a viable solution to all people being able to be where they need to be that doesn't involve cars, put it forward. I'm all ears.
posted by dg at 3:27 PM on October 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
The Swedish capital of Stockholm will ban gasoline cars from its downtown area in an effort to combat pollution and reduce emissions. This restriction will take effect in December 2024.
The area encompasses 20 blocks, 180,000m^2. There is an exemption for disabled drivers and emergency vehicles.
posted by daveliepmann at 1:33 PM on October 20, 2023 [2 favorites]
The area encompasses 20 blocks, 180,000m^2. There is an exemption for disabled drivers and emergency vehicles.
posted by daveliepmann at 1:33 PM on October 20, 2023 [2 favorites]
Not Just Bikes's discussion of Vauban (timestamp 6:05), the suburb of Freiburg, explores a great example of how to make people in non-city places prefer not to have a car. It's the same old stuff: modal filters, multiple connections to good transit, use of an standardized taxonomy of streets which include ones in which cars are second-class citizens.
I like how he skewers the myth that European cities are like this because they're old, rather than because their citizens decided to make their built environment nice.
posted by daveliepmann at 10:36 AM on October 22, 2023 [3 favorites]
I like how he skewers the myth that European cities are like this because they're old, rather than because their citizens decided to make their built environment nice.
posted by daveliepmann at 10:36 AM on October 22, 2023 [3 favorites]
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(* On a relatively clear road. I don’t think anyone enjoys driving in traffic. I certainly don’t.)
posted by eviemath at 3:05 PM on September 22, 2023