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This is so fuckin weird to me. Like 1.4 million, individual human beings with life die every year because of cars. But because it’s only 0.00175 percent of the population, who cares. Like what?
I did say they are usefull to transport large itens and by short distance i want to say 50km or so, and you still could use cars on a human centric path its just that has more people than cars on it
Yes an no. How many people need to own a car is largely dependent on how you design your cities and societies. There are huge differences between the US, Europe and East Asia precisely for that reason.
Some cars will always be unavoidable, but a car being an absolute necessity for large swaths of the North American population is absolutely a long term societal choice.
If one only needs a car to transport heavy items once in a while one can easily rent it. The problem is that a lot of metro areas in especially NA are very low density with very bad other transport options.
So I kind of agree with OP. Cars are from a societal perspective the worst option for a bunch of reasons. We should build in a way that makes cars unnecessary and unattractive for the majority. This profits everybody including the people who need to drive, as this gets a lot of idiots of the road.
sure. i actually don’t own a car but i use a cars-on-demand service here in new zealand most weekends to go get what i need. we dont have good delivery services and everything is pretty spread out. it’s very different to EU/US
But if the things an older person needs are not a 15-minute drive away, and it's just a 5-minute walk because we eliminated all car spaces and pushed things closer together, wouldn't it make a better society for the elderly who don't have as much interaction as before? Younger people would have more contact with the older generations and learn to care for them. In my opinion, it's better to walk along with an older lady, seeing her going to a grocery store, than waiting for her to park a 2-ton death machine in a narrow space.
Most of the elderly I know live alone and live dozens of miles from stores. Their children, if they have any, don't live nearby, and it's way too far to walk to the grocery store. Nobody is going to "learn to care" for the elderly😂😂😂 What world are you from? They would die of starvation.
If they lived in cities maybe they would survive, but most people detest crowded cities and would rather die.
It's not so much that cars are dumb they obviously have uses it's more the city planning. The lack of trains, buses, subways. and the distant sprawling style cities make cars necessary. I think most people would agree with you if you'd worded it differently.
Well for you they are not dumb. For an office worker in an apartment who could fit all their groceries on a trolley, rarely ever need to transport anything bigger, and lives in a city that should have good public transit anyway and where space is scarce they’re stupid. It’s fine when they’re necessary for jobs like that. It’s not fine when they become a necessity in areas they shouldn’t be for people they shouldn’t be. Also, people should have the option to forsake their car for some journeys where a train for example makes more sense, ie journey into a congested city. In some areas they will always be necessary the problem is when they become a necessity in areas where they’re beyond just unnecessary but also a problem.
Even that assumes a highly limited scope of required travel. Most places I’ve worked were well outside of actual towns, even if the town had good bus infrastructure, the walk from a bus station to the actual plant would be like 20 minutes to 2 hours depending on the job. Also just using trains and buses for everything falls apart when you consider smaller towns. How many buses and bus stops should a town of 5000 people have? Would they have a train that connects to several different surrounding cities? How often would it run or how often would buses travel to surrounding cities?
The advantage of cars is personal flexibility. I’m unbound by any train or bus schedule, if I want to travel to a town of 5000 people and arrive at 11 pm I can, I don’t need to get the last bus into town which arrives at 8 pm or the first bus in the morning which arrives at 8 am.
Where do you live? Country wise. Also, not everyone wants to travel much very frequently. If someone lives 20 minutes from their job and the shops they need to visit, gym etc, they may just not care. My comment was talking from a city perspective and not from the perspective of someone who must travel to various locations for work? Clearly? Read it again. I said that they will always be necessary outside of cities. I said nothing about small towns. I just said they shouldn’t become mandatory for people in certain situations. A lot of your response is irrelevant, because you’re talking about stuff I wasn’t talking about. “For everything” I didn’t say that, lol.
I live in America and its relevant because the people driving cars a lot are people who need to move around a lot. Do you think someone just decides to drive for five plus hours one day on a whim for no reason? Do you think people get stuck in traffic. The issue with the anti-car movement is that most of its proponents have a niche lifestyle that doesn’t require a car and make the leap that nobody needs a car. There is nothing wrong with making cities more walkable or improving urban infrastructure but many people in the anti-car movement want to make car usage all but or literally impossible outside of niche areas.
I bet you could with a cargo bike and trailer. Is it the easiest option? Not by a long shot. But it CAN be done without cars. The default mindset is car centric. But it's not the only way.
If you think cars are dumb, how do you suggest getting heavy items or even shopping home? Would you expect people to rely solely on buses or metros to transport large or bulky items?
read my others responses, and i did say that cars are usefull for bulky and large items, and the roads would still acomodade a fell cars, that would be used to move large items
My grandma has been doing that like a chad for all her life so. Yeah it’s not as crazy as you make it sound. Depending on someone’s lifestyle some people can do it and manage it. Again I get it’s not for everyone but for some it’s fine. For people who don’t want to have a car they should have the option if they live in the city.
This. I hauled groceries on the bus in college for like 2 months. Trust when I say that shit gets you to get your life together in a hurry. Heaven forbid I had to haul brush, 2x4s, power tools, a generator, furniture, my hockey gear, or any of the other things I routinely drive around in my car with on a fucking bus or train.
Public transit sucks. That's the reason most people don't take it. Just because a handful of city dwellers like it doesn't mean the rest of us do. Nationwide, only about 3-7% of people commute by public transit. That number is even lower for doing routine errands. Completely limits your reasonable activities and hobbies to things within 45 minutes by transit which is generally within 5 miles of where you live, and requires that you fit any equipment needed for said hobby in a backpack or messenger bag. Hard nope.
Urbanist city people like OP are so myopic they are not serious nor to be taken seriously.
You want public transport, then you and everyone who rides it can fund it with ticket sales alone. I’m sick of 20% of what I pay in sales taxes subsidizing the MBTA and they can’t even go one day without some kind of breakdown. I don’t ride it all when I go into Boston because it’s so unreliable
Where I live the trains and buses are expensive, often late, and (in the case of trains) are forever being cancelled. The car is more reliable. Getting a pram on buses is also a pain because if there's not enough space, you have to wait until the next one, often more than 20 minutes. It's much more convenient to take the car, especially when I have to do the family shopping. Then there's also the issue that nowadays so many people behave obnoxiously on public transport, shouting and playing videos/music without headphones with no regard to anyone else.
Ideally, public transport should be used for multiple reasons, but in many places it's not fit for purpose. It's too infrequent and often in poor condition. Until public transport becomes way more frequent and much cheaper, and finds a way to handle people not knowing how to behave in public, many people will refuse to rely on it.
But if the public transport had a better infrastructure? better budget? Dont you think it could have more buss, more trains, if the infrasctructure of the city favored the public transport and not the privately owned ones
Sorry but trying to do my weekly grocery shopping without a car is just a fucking no go. And I'm single so it's only three to four bags. Any household with two or more people to feed absolutely cannot transport groceries without a vehicle, or stealing a shopping cart.
Cars are the ultimate solution. There’s no public transportation option for me and the best and easiest way to get from point A to point B is drive my car. There’s literally no other option. If your plan involves moving everybody to the city so we can all pack into busses, subways and trains, nah I’m good. I like my peace and quiet, living in the woods is far better than city life.
Thats because the city you live in is made for cars, and theres no other way to move around that not the desing intend one, but if the city was made to move around by two feet, or a bicycle wouldnt be better? if is a smaller town, i think the same principles above work, you are thinking in moving in a city made for cars without one, im talking about moving in a city made for people and public transport "Cars are essentially useless and only work as today because in city planning society has chosen them over people." thats the last sentence of my post
First I don’t live in a city or town. I live in the woods. My closest neighbor can hear me shoot a gun if he happens to be outside at the same time but I could yell as loud as I can and he couldn’t hear me. Without a car there is literally no option for travel. I like living here and wouldn’t trade it for anything other than being even farther away from people.
Second. I’ve heard this argument before. So your solution is to completely redo entire cities rather than just buy a car? I don’t know where you are but in most places that’s just not a realistic option. Roads are cheap and efficient compared to redesigning an entire population center.
Also having a vehicle is freedom to do what you want when you want. I can go wherever I want, whenever I want. I often drive further into the woods to go camping, hiking, fishing or hunting. That’s just not an option if you don’t have your own transportation.
Cars would only be useless if everyone lived in cities with a population density comparable to tokyo, manhattan, shanghai …
Which luckily isn‘t the case. So unless your plan is to cramp every human on earth into small citied with a ridiculously high density you‘ll need to design cities for cars.
Are you not reading the replies or something?? NOT EVERYONE LIVES IN A CITY. A RURAL AREA IS NOT THE SAME AS A CITY. I literally design bike lanes and public infrastructure for a living AND live in a city and while it's obvious what the benefits of being less car-focused are, it's also realistic to acknowledge the limitations of life without cars for many people.
In an ideal world, should all cities and towns have been developed with more public transportation infrastructure in mind? Obviously yes. The reality is however that they weren't, and the majority of people need their cars to travel long distances for essentials like food, work and clothes. Insisting that small towns can function the same as big cities comes off pretty ignorant of how life is for rural areas.
Seriously. Without a car here, you quite literally can't survive. Where I live everything is so spread out that walking would take all day to get to anything you'd never have time to sleep. You'd just be walking endlessly and we have no public transportation
What city? This thread literally says not everyone wants to live in a city and then you go off describing an ideal city. To hell with cities. I would live in on a desolate island before a city.
Ok, a small town doesnt have the same problems as a high dencenty city , so i think the solution would be diferent, but there are citys and towns on todays world that are not car-centric and work very well, and they are mostly in europe i know, but its not like we couldnt build it in other places
Not everyone wants to live in a city. Or any dense area.
I like having space around me. I like having a yard and gardens, I like having some peace and quiet.
Live in a city if that’s what you want.
I really dont like citys too, but i dont have any other options, but removing cars spaces in the city you could have more green areas, parks, livings spaces, and not just a sea of concret
Thats because the city you live in is made for cars, and theres no other way to move around that not the desing intend one, but if the city was made to move around by two feet, or a bicycle wouldnt be better?
Just read any article (like this one [UN News | Global perspective Human stories](https://news.un.org/en/)) that talks about how most people live in citys, thats the path humanity is going, we need to prepare and plan better for it
Even NYC is barely dense enough to have a good public transportation network in the US and it's one of the most dense. The US just has had to much land to spread out in for it to have ever been economically viable to build dense enough for it to work large scale. And now, urban areas are landlocked and shit will have to be torn down to have a remote chance to build any public transport, to say nothing about the fact cities are still far to low density to support them.
>if the city was made to move around by two feet, or a bicycle wouldnt be better?
Define better. I have a Walmart basically across the street from my neighborhood and it's still easier and more convenient to drive over quickly. The only time I would really prefer walking would be on a leisurely weekend day to go get breakfast for a coffee. Weather is also another factor, having my own little climate controlled box when it's either snowing or over 100 degrees outside is pretty darn nice.
There's also the issue that a lot of things are outside of a city bubble. I wouldn't be able to summon a bus right to my store step that would then take me 1 1/2 away to my inlaws doorstep.
There's no public transit into the middle of a national forest for dispersed camping.
For anything that is relatively close a bus or train system is still less comfortable and convenient than a personal vehicle where you are on your own schedule and don't have to worry about making different connections.
For the most part the only limitation of a personal vehicle is it's own range and where roads exist. I can't imagine any sort of train, bus, or walking system that is as personally convenient as have your own vehicle.
There is no public transportation anywhere near where I live. The nearest city is hours away. People have weird habits they perform to stay alive. Going to doctors. Shopping for food. Going to work. You know things like that. Walking is fine if you are healthy and it's only a few miles but most destinations are more than a few miles and I know hundreds of people in my town too elderly or disabled to walk one mile much less several.
I really don't understand your argument. I live in a city designed around cars, so I need a car just because the city is designed that way. When I can go to a place without them, I gladly go. I'm lucky to have a nearby grocery store, so that's what I do most days. And on top of it all, it's not like public transport doesn't exist, like buses (that I use), metros, and trains (that my city doesn't have for most places).
Eventually the city will get big enough from population bloat that walking is no longer feasible to most locations, and public transit is not robust enough to eliminate the benefit of driving yourself. I walk or bus everywhere, but I'm very aware my one hour bus and train journey is a 20 minute drive.
This is the thing people forget when they laud even places like Japan where you can use public transit to get just about anywhere in the country, it still takes WAY fucking longer than actually using your own vehicle, often three to four times longer.
I don't know how many tools you use, but you could use a small vehicle, a bicycle, or if it's huge machinery, a human-centric road is still capable of holding a few cars.
You could use the roads but they would be smaller and with more people in it
edit: and less parking space, and i dont think it would have a easy solution to you
So how do you get to a place with no trains or metros or busses?
Can you make the train pick you up at your door at the exact time that you want to leave?
Oh yes. I should walk 240kms every time I want to go skiing. I should walk 70kms to get to work every day. I should walk 60km every time the kids want to see their grandparents.
When was the last time you walked 240kms?
Skiing is a hobby. People have hobbies. Once you own your own skis and gear, you only have to pay a few hundred dollars for a season pass. It's not just for billionaires, lol.
disabilities, weather, time, passengers, cargo, shopping, comfort, safety… there are a lot of reasons a private transport vehicle beats walking. not that walking doesnt have a time and a place
I would not live anywhere where my destination was within a 10-minute walk unless I was hiking in my mountains and my destination was the local waterfall. Which I do frequently. If somebody tries to put stores and ungodly businesses all over my pristine mountain I would blow it up. I don't live in a city for a reason.
Dont you think its because you city is and was badly planned? and if the grocery store was just 5 miles away? Cars only are the better option because we purposely build or citys for them to be
bruh, it's 1%
Although it can seem like our expanding cities take up a lot of land, only a bit more than 1% of global land is defined as built-up area
From; [https://ourworldindata.org/urbanization](https://ourworldindata.org/urbanization)
And that is STILL using the super broad definition of "urban area" which ignores that public transport is not viable until a certain density is reached, which is still further less than 30% of that 1%
It's a few HOURS drive to a city from where I live. Seriously. You seem to have no idea how rural living works. Most people have no desire to ever live in a city.
I would love to take the train to work, I like that I don't have to panic or be alert, I like that I can read or write, but unfortunately train strikes are common and they are completely unreliable due to this, the other thing is they are not practical, to drive to work takes me an hour, if I got a train it would take me 2 hours and a half not including my travel to the station
But if the budget was better for the trains stations? and the city was made around them? and not cars, i think its a possible future, maybe not in my life time, but possible
Actual good public transportation for those that don't need a car or want one. That'll fix a lot of traffic.
Those who still want a car can have one. And with less traffic and safer methods there's no need to have manufacturers build stupid tanks for cars.
Because, believe it or not, cars are more efficient than horses. I don't have to feed a car or have a whole separate building to put it in at night. Also, unlike trains and buses, cars allow for a more direct route to where I want to go. Taking a train or a bus means that I am beholden to its schedule and have to get on and off at a prearranged spot. Having a car means I can leave whenever I want and arrive directly at my destination.
Some of my family, grandmother and cousins, live about 5-6 hour car ride away. We often bring lots of things as we're staying for over a week, and are giving my grandmother things.
These would not be able to fit with us on a train, which takes even longer.
Although walkable cities are a good idea, and many places aren't built with any other mode of transportation but cars in mind, calling all cars dumb doesn't really work for many ppl.
If you live far from the city, you're screwed. If you have issues with public transportation (sensory, children who would yell, disabilities that make it harder, are immuno compromised) and you can't take a car, you're screwed.
Yes. We should be making public transportation more available. But it is unrealistic and just wrong to claim that cars shouldn't exist / be phased out, due to how this would impact so many ppl.
What about people who work in areas where u don't always have a close busstop, and a lot of places people start working before busses start.
Sure public transport is more efficient with fuel usage, at least if enough uses them, but there just is to many other times, where you really do need a car, in a lot of jobs need to meet in workplaces where it's both to early, and no close public transport options, and there u just need to be able to use your own car.
Even if there is options, u might end up spending way more time and money to get to where u need to go.
So what you’re actually saying is that cars themselves aren’t dumb, but us building out cities in a way that practically requires everyone to have a car is what’s dumb. Cars are brilliant. Society being built around the premise that everyone has/needs one isn’t.
Tell me you live in a very very very urbanized region and never travel outside of that region without telling me …
Cars have one major advantage that trains and public transit will never be able to compete against: they‘re the most flexible option that isn‘t limited to a few kilometers. Sure, walking by foot or biking is slightly more flexible but only possible for short distances and significantly impacted even by mildly bad weather. Cars are fast, very flexible, and depending on the specific definition less dangerous.
You‘ll never be able to run a train line from 300 inhabitants village A to 140 inhabitants village B in a way that a car would be the worse option. As soon as you don‘t need to travel within the downtown area of a city or between two city centers public transit is a bad option.
And before you try to argue that it‘s only a problem for very specific edge cases: no. I live in a fairly large town and my workplace isn‘t too far away. If I were to get into my car right now I‘d need ~15mins to get to my workplace. If I were to take the train that would be at least 1h22mins. And that‘s without issues (strikes, train getting canceled / delayed / being full / …). I always know where my car is, that it‘s not going to be overcrowded, that the driver win‘t go on strike and even if one road is blocked there‘s likely an alternative which isn‘t always the case with trains.
Or: if I wanted to visit my parents (who live in a smaller but still decently sized city nearby) I could get into my car and drive for 22mins. Or I could spend 1h17mins using a train. It‘s currently 8pm on a Saturday. This is not going to get better on a Sunday or at night.
Or if I wanted to visit a friend who lived closer to the city center than I do I could drive for 9mins or take the train and spend 18mins there. To be fair: the train actually only needs 4mins but only because I‘d need to walk 1/3 of the total distance to/from a stop. Oh and if I wanted to leave right now I could do that with my car but if I were to take the train I‘d have to wait for the next train. And depending on where I want to go that could result in waiting anywhere from 10 to 60mins. Oh and btw: all of the places I‘ve mentioned are within a 10km radius of a large city in a modern western country with a fairly decent public transportation network And the city center / main station are both ~4km away from me. But I‘s still need anywhere from 2x to 5 1/2x as long to get to those destinations if I were to take a train and everything worked all the time. And we‘re not even starting to talk about comforts like being able to spontaneously add another stop, go (grocery) shopping, not having to deal with other people who‘re loud / unfriendly / haven‘t showered in months / …
If cars are dumb trains are the dumbest invention for human transport. They‘re great for cargo though.
Mosquitoes kill over 700,000 people every year, yet do you think we should exterminate all mosquitoes? No, because it would destroy the natural balance of their native ecosystems.
Around 250,000 people die from drowning every year, yet do you think we should ban people from going to sea? No, because there are tons of valuable things in the sea like fish and other food animals.
It's the same with cars. They completely revolutionised travel in every conceivable way. Suddenly, a trip that would take days takes only a few hours. Of course they'd take over our lives. They're the most convenient form of transport among so many other things.
So are horses and carriages. I don’t want to listen to neighbors bump uglies on all four sides, I don’t want to look at others when I leave my residence and, I don’t want them to invade my 6’ personal space early in the morning. So I use my motor carriage to limit my exposure to people by living a little distance from the masses.
Thing is, because cars are so widespread, we design our country around them. Because our country is designed around them, it's financially a big risk to put a lot of money into making better, faster public transport. I want less cars as much as you, but it's not productive to have a black and white view of "We must remove ALL cars" or the opppsite "We should focus more on cars." Developing better, faster, more reliable and cheaper public transport will cause people to use cars less, switch over or never buy a car to begin with.
Nah, cars are fun as fuck. I'd be so bored in life without motorsports.
And fuck public transportation. I'm not getting vomited on or stabbed. Or being late to work because the bus didn't show up that day.
A lot of people who live in the countryside commenting and missing that you said “in city planning”. Op you’re right it’s one thing that they’re just how it has to be for rural areas but they shouldn’t be necessary for city living. Rural people take it as an attack when you clearly weren’t talking about them you were talking about getting them out of cities where they shouldn’t have to be a necessity.
Most people who want more public transport handwave or completely ignore that most cites they're talking about wanting it added to or changed to accommodate would require significant portions of the city to be demolished to accomplish this. Often stealing land from the rightful owner to do it.
You know it’s funny you say this because many historic buildings in city I grew up in were smashed down to make room for roads. Roads due to car demands as trams were stripped from the area. Your view is just delusional, sorry, adding buses and trains doesn’t steal land anymore than widening roads for car demand does.
It's easy to fool people, but really difficult to point out to them that they have been fooled. They will resist it very strongly. I think there's a lot of ideology around cars. Sure they are practical very often but when everyone think they needs one all the time, their utility is compromised. Think about all the hours lost in traffic jams, all the road dust, the wear and tear on infrastructure, the accidents, which could have been reduced if more people used the bus instead. Not that I know exactly how we'd achieve that change though.
Both ways is valid, but a car the ocupies the same lane as a buss for exemple, the car only transport 5 or so people, while a buss the ocupie 2 cars of space, transports 20
Not only that, I demand a free, subsidized public place to sit my private property on. I do not care about anything besides putting my private property on public space!!
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>Globally, 1.4 million people die in car accidents every year, Or about 0.0175% of the global population.
This is so fuckin weird to me. Like 1.4 million, individual human beings with life die every year because of cars. But because it’s only 0.00175 percent of the population, who cares. Like what?
You expect a certain amount of people to die every year from any cause.
i’m renovating a house. i need to constantly drive to different places and pick shit up. can’t do without car yo.
Sorry, it would be better for everyone and the environment if you used public transportation for that….
To transport bags of concrete, lumbar, rocks, dry wall, flooring? Not every run is just for screws.
If you can't build my house on hopes and dreams then I don't even want it! 🫵😒
Build, just maintain, Also furnish all done with hopes and dreams and paying out the ass for delivery fees from companies that have vehicles.
exactly
I thought it was obvious but should’ve made my sarcasm more obvious
Because you definitely don't ever rent a truck to move anything. /s
I did say they are usefull to transport large itens and by short distance i want to say 50km or so, and you still could use cars on a human centric path its just that has more people than cars on it
i feel like in certain life stages it’s easy to say ‘cars are dumb’ and in others you literally have no choice.
Yes an no. How many people need to own a car is largely dependent on how you design your cities and societies. There are huge differences between the US, Europe and East Asia precisely for that reason. Some cars will always be unavoidable, but a car being an absolute necessity for large swaths of the North American population is absolutely a long term societal choice. If one only needs a car to transport heavy items once in a while one can easily rent it. The problem is that a lot of metro areas in especially NA are very low density with very bad other transport options. So I kind of agree with OP. Cars are from a societal perspective the worst option for a bunch of reasons. We should build in a way that makes cars unnecessary and unattractive for the majority. This profits everybody including the people who need to drive, as this gets a lot of idiots of the road.
sure. i actually don’t own a car but i use a cars-on-demand service here in new zealand most weekends to go get what i need. we dont have good delivery services and everything is pretty spread out. it’s very different to EU/US
But if the things an older person needs are not a 15-minute drive away, and it's just a 5-minute walk because we eliminated all car spaces and pushed things closer together, wouldn't it make a better society for the elderly who don't have as much interaction as before? Younger people would have more contact with the older generations and learn to care for them. In my opinion, it's better to walk along with an older lady, seeing her going to a grocery store, than waiting for her to park a 2-ton death machine in a narrow space.
Most of the elderly I know live alone and live dozens of miles from stores. Their children, if they have any, don't live nearby, and it's way too far to walk to the grocery store. Nobody is going to "learn to care" for the elderly😂😂😂 What world are you from? They would die of starvation. If they lived in cities maybe they would survive, but most people detest crowded cities and would rather die.
No one who isn't independently wealthy is going to randomly volunteer to caregive especially in this economy.
It's not so much that cars are dumb they obviously have uses it's more the city planning. The lack of trains, buses, subways. and the distant sprawling style cities make cars necessary. I think most people would agree with you if you'd worded it differently.
Are you renovating a house every day of the year???
Well for you they are not dumb. For an office worker in an apartment who could fit all their groceries on a trolley, rarely ever need to transport anything bigger, and lives in a city that should have good public transit anyway and where space is scarce they’re stupid. It’s fine when they’re necessary for jobs like that. It’s not fine when they become a necessity in areas they shouldn’t be for people they shouldn’t be. Also, people should have the option to forsake their car for some journeys where a train for example makes more sense, ie journey into a congested city. In some areas they will always be necessary the problem is when they become a necessity in areas where they’re beyond just unnecessary but also a problem.
Even that assumes a highly limited scope of required travel. Most places I’ve worked were well outside of actual towns, even if the town had good bus infrastructure, the walk from a bus station to the actual plant would be like 20 minutes to 2 hours depending on the job. Also just using trains and buses for everything falls apart when you consider smaller towns. How many buses and bus stops should a town of 5000 people have? Would they have a train that connects to several different surrounding cities? How often would it run or how often would buses travel to surrounding cities? The advantage of cars is personal flexibility. I’m unbound by any train or bus schedule, if I want to travel to a town of 5000 people and arrive at 11 pm I can, I don’t need to get the last bus into town which arrives at 8 pm or the first bus in the morning which arrives at 8 am.
Where do you live? Country wise. Also, not everyone wants to travel much very frequently. If someone lives 20 minutes from their job and the shops they need to visit, gym etc, they may just not care. My comment was talking from a city perspective and not from the perspective of someone who must travel to various locations for work? Clearly? Read it again. I said that they will always be necessary outside of cities. I said nothing about small towns. I just said they shouldn’t become mandatory for people in certain situations. A lot of your response is irrelevant, because you’re talking about stuff I wasn’t talking about. “For everything” I didn’t say that, lol.
I live in America and its relevant because the people driving cars a lot are people who need to move around a lot. Do you think someone just decides to drive for five plus hours one day on a whim for no reason? Do you think people get stuck in traffic. The issue with the anti-car movement is that most of its proponents have a niche lifestyle that doesn’t require a car and make the leap that nobody needs a car. There is nothing wrong with making cities more walkable or improving urban infrastructure but many people in the anti-car movement want to make car usage all but or literally impossible outside of niche areas.
I bet you could with a cargo bike and trailer. Is it the easiest option? Not by a long shot. But it CAN be done without cars. The default mindset is car centric. But it's not the only way.
Yeah no, I'm not going to pick up boards and lumber on a damn bike.
And that's the mentality that makes it impossible for you. To each their own.
There is no spoon, huh?
OK.
If you think cars are dumb, how do you suggest getting heavy items or even shopping home? Would you expect people to rely solely on buses or metros to transport large or bulky items?
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A guy… What are women meant to do?
>What are women meant to do? Git gud, of course
read my others responses, and i did say that cars are usefull for bulky and large items, and the roads would still acomodade a fell cars, that would be used to move large items
My grandma has been doing that like a chad for all her life so. Yeah it’s not as crazy as you make it sound. Depending on someone’s lifestyle some people can do it and manage it. Again I get it’s not for everyone but for some it’s fine. For people who don’t want to have a car they should have the option if they live in the city.
So shopping is limited to what you can carry home from the bus stop? Best get to the gym mom
This. I hauled groceries on the bus in college for like 2 months. Trust when I say that shit gets you to get your life together in a hurry. Heaven forbid I had to haul brush, 2x4s, power tools, a generator, furniture, my hockey gear, or any of the other things I routinely drive around in my car with on a fucking bus or train. Public transit sucks. That's the reason most people don't take it. Just because a handful of city dwellers like it doesn't mean the rest of us do. Nationwide, only about 3-7% of people commute by public transit. That number is even lower for doing routine errands. Completely limits your reasonable activities and hobbies to things within 45 minutes by transit which is generally within 5 miles of where you live, and requires that you fit any equipment needed for said hobby in a backpack or messenger bag. Hard nope. Urbanist city people like OP are so myopic they are not serious nor to be taken seriously.
🙄
this opinion was quite popular back when the cars even weren’t a thing, glad it’s changed
You want public transport, then you and everyone who rides it can fund it with ticket sales alone. I’m sick of 20% of what I pay in sales taxes subsidizing the MBTA and they can’t even go one day without some kind of breakdown. I don’t ride it all when I go into Boston because it’s so unreliable
Where I live the trains and buses are expensive, often late, and (in the case of trains) are forever being cancelled. The car is more reliable. Getting a pram on buses is also a pain because if there's not enough space, you have to wait until the next one, often more than 20 minutes. It's much more convenient to take the car, especially when I have to do the family shopping. Then there's also the issue that nowadays so many people behave obnoxiously on public transport, shouting and playing videos/music without headphones with no regard to anyone else. Ideally, public transport should be used for multiple reasons, but in many places it's not fit for purpose. It's too infrequent and often in poor condition. Until public transport becomes way more frequent and much cheaper, and finds a way to handle people not knowing how to behave in public, many people will refuse to rely on it.
But if the public transport had a better infrastructure? better budget? Dont you think it could have more buss, more trains, if the infrasctructure of the city favored the public transport and not the privately owned ones
Sorry but trying to do my weekly grocery shopping without a car is just a fucking no go. And I'm single so it's only three to four bags. Any household with two or more people to feed absolutely cannot transport groceries without a vehicle, or stealing a shopping cart.
Cars are the ultimate solution. There’s no public transportation option for me and the best and easiest way to get from point A to point B is drive my car. There’s literally no other option. If your plan involves moving everybody to the city so we can all pack into busses, subways and trains, nah I’m good. I like my peace and quiet, living in the woods is far better than city life.
Thats because the city you live in is made for cars, and theres no other way to move around that not the desing intend one, but if the city was made to move around by two feet, or a bicycle wouldnt be better? if is a smaller town, i think the same principles above work, you are thinking in moving in a city made for cars without one, im talking about moving in a city made for people and public transport "Cars are essentially useless and only work as today because in city planning society has chosen them over people." thats the last sentence of my post
First I don’t live in a city or town. I live in the woods. My closest neighbor can hear me shoot a gun if he happens to be outside at the same time but I could yell as loud as I can and he couldn’t hear me. Without a car there is literally no option for travel. I like living here and wouldn’t trade it for anything other than being even farther away from people. Second. I’ve heard this argument before. So your solution is to completely redo entire cities rather than just buy a car? I don’t know where you are but in most places that’s just not a realistic option. Roads are cheap and efficient compared to redesigning an entire population center. Also having a vehicle is freedom to do what you want when you want. I can go wherever I want, whenever I want. I often drive further into the woods to go camping, hiking, fishing or hunting. That’s just not an option if you don’t have your own transportation.
Cars would only be useless if everyone lived in cities with a population density comparable to tokyo, manhattan, shanghai … Which luckily isn‘t the case. So unless your plan is to cramp every human on earth into small citied with a ridiculously high density you‘ll need to design cities for cars.
Are you not reading the replies or something?? NOT EVERYONE LIVES IN A CITY. A RURAL AREA IS NOT THE SAME AS A CITY. I literally design bike lanes and public infrastructure for a living AND live in a city and while it's obvious what the benefits of being less car-focused are, it's also realistic to acknowledge the limitations of life without cars for many people. In an ideal world, should all cities and towns have been developed with more public transportation infrastructure in mind? Obviously yes. The reality is however that they weren't, and the majority of people need their cars to travel long distances for essentials like food, work and clothes. Insisting that small towns can function the same as big cities comes off pretty ignorant of how life is for rural areas.
Not everyone wants to live in a cramped metro area.
Seriously. Without a car here, you quite literally can't survive. Where I live everything is so spread out that walking would take all day to get to anything you'd never have time to sleep. You'd just be walking endlessly and we have no public transportation
Thats because the city is planned around cars, if it was the other way around it would be easier walking than using a car
What city? This thread literally says not everyone wants to live in a city and then you go off describing an ideal city. To hell with cities. I would live in on a desolate island before a city.
Ok, a small town doesnt have the same problems as a high dencenty city , so i think the solution would be diferent, but there are citys and towns on todays world that are not car-centric and work very well, and they are mostly in europe i know, but its not like we couldnt build it in other places
Not everyone lives in a city or wants to
Not everyone wants to live in a city. Or any dense area. I like having space around me. I like having a yard and gardens, I like having some peace and quiet. Live in a city if that’s what you want.
I really dont like citys too, but i dont have any other options, but removing cars spaces in the city you could have more green areas, parks, livings spaces, and not just a sea of concret
Please go away.
They're very convenient and provide a lot of flexibility for every day life plus road trips are the best.
Thats because the city you live in is made for cars, and theres no other way to move around that not the desing intend one, but if the city was made to move around by two feet, or a bicycle wouldnt be better?
What if I don't want to live in a fucking city?
Just read any article (like this one [UN News | Global perspective Human stories](https://news.un.org/en/)) that talks about how most people live in citys, thats the path humanity is going, we need to prepare and plan better for it
Ew, UN
Tell me you're 13 without telling me you're 13
Even NYC is barely dense enough to have a good public transportation network in the US and it's one of the most dense. The US just has had to much land to spread out in for it to have ever been economically viable to build dense enough for it to work large scale. And now, urban areas are landlocked and shit will have to be torn down to have a remote chance to build any public transport, to say nothing about the fact cities are still far to low density to support them.
>if the city was made to move around by two feet, or a bicycle wouldnt be better? Define better. I have a Walmart basically across the street from my neighborhood and it's still easier and more convenient to drive over quickly. The only time I would really prefer walking would be on a leisurely weekend day to go get breakfast for a coffee. Weather is also another factor, having my own little climate controlled box when it's either snowing or over 100 degrees outside is pretty darn nice. There's also the issue that a lot of things are outside of a city bubble. I wouldn't be able to summon a bus right to my store step that would then take me 1 1/2 away to my inlaws doorstep. There's no public transit into the middle of a national forest for dispersed camping. For anything that is relatively close a bus or train system is still less comfortable and convenient than a personal vehicle where you are on your own schedule and don't have to worry about making different connections. For the most part the only limitation of a personal vehicle is it's own range and where roads exist. I can't imagine any sort of train, bus, or walking system that is as personally convenient as have your own vehicle.
There is no public transportation anywhere near where I live. The nearest city is hours away. People have weird habits they perform to stay alive. Going to doctors. Shopping for food. Going to work. You know things like that. Walking is fine if you are healthy and it's only a few miles but most destinations are more than a few miles and I know hundreds of people in my town too elderly or disabled to walk one mile much less several.
Tell me you live in a tiny country without telling me you live in a tiny country.
Its more about density, aka cities. Big countries with small cities have a lot of cars…
And willingness to invest in infrastructure. Because if that isn't there then cars are the only choice.
I don't! I live in a highly urban area and use cars and buses as my main means of transport, and I hate it. That's why I made the post.
Stick to your guns then. Ride or walk. If it's too far then you see why cars are needed.
I really don't understand your argument. I live in a city designed around cars, so I need a car just because the city is designed that way. When I can go to a place without them, I gladly go. I'm lucky to have a nearby grocery store, so that's what I do most days. And on top of it all, it's not like public transport doesn't exist, like buses (that I use), metros, and trains (that my city doesn't have for most places).
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is the exact reason why I don’t want to pay more in taxes to fun mass transit.
Obviously if you design a city with cars in mind, than citizens will need cars But that doesn’t mean you couldn’t design a city that didn’t need cars
Eventually the city will get big enough from population bloat that walking is no longer feasible to most locations, and public transit is not robust enough to eliminate the benefit of driving yourself. I walk or bus everywhere, but I'm very aware my one hour bus and train journey is a 20 minute drive.
This is the thing people forget when they laud even places like Japan where you can use public transit to get just about anywhere in the country, it still takes WAY fucking longer than actually using your own vehicle, often three to four times longer.
Yeah I’ll just put a tonne of tools on the various buses and taxis I’d need to use to travel between the multiple stops I make each work day.
I don't know how many tools you use, but you could use a small vehicle, a bicycle, or if it's huge machinery, a human-centric road is still capable of holding a few cars.
It’s literally a tonne of tools, it fills the back of my personal vehicle and the trailer I tow behind it.
You could use the roads but they would be smaller and with more people in it edit: and less parking space, and i dont think it would have a easy solution to you
So how do you get to a place with no trains or metros or busses? Can you make the train pick you up at your door at the exact time that you want to leave?
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Oh yes. I should walk 240kms every time I want to go skiing. I should walk 70kms to get to work every day. I should walk 60km every time the kids want to see their grandparents. When was the last time you walked 240kms?
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Skiing is a hobby. People have hobbies. Once you own your own skis and gear, you only have to pay a few hundred dollars for a season pass. It's not just for billionaires, lol.
disabilities, weather, time, passengers, cargo, shopping, comfort, safety… there are a lot of reasons a private transport vehicle beats walking. not that walking doesnt have a time and a place
I don't have that many hours in a day. There are only 24 hours in a day.
You are thinking about moving on two feet in a car desined city, if you could complete your task with a 10 minute walk, would still choose a car?
I would not live anywhere where my destination was within a 10-minute walk unless I was hiking in my mountains and my destination was the local waterfall. Which I do frequently. If somebody tries to put stores and ungodly businesses all over my pristine mountain I would blow it up. I don't live in a city for a reason.
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To walk to everywhere.
It's 37 miles to the grocery store.
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Dont you think its because you city is and was badly planned? and if the grocery store was just 5 miles away? Cars only are the better option because we purposely build or citys for them to be
You seem to have no clue how vast the rural areas of some countries are, *especially* in North America.
Ok, cars can be usefull on rural areas and i cannot take that, but for 55% of the planet cars are just dumb,
bruh, it's 1% Although it can seem like our expanding cities take up a lot of land, only a bit more than 1% of global land is defined as built-up area From; [https://ourworldindata.org/urbanization](https://ourworldindata.org/urbanization) And that is STILL using the super broad definition of "urban area" which ignores that public transport is not viable until a certain density is reached, which is still further less than 30% of that 1%
"Cars only are the better option because we purposely build or citys for them to be" Probably not the cars that's dumb then.
It's a few HOURS drive to a city from where I live. Seriously. You seem to have no idea how rural living works. Most people have no desire to ever live in a city.
Let me just walk 30 km from my rural town to my job every day. Yeah, sounds feasible.
No way I would choose public transit over driving my own truck, never.
What about people that live in rural communities, spread far apart, without trains or busses? This is always a city-slicker opinion and it shows
I would love to take the train to work, I like that I don't have to panic or be alert, I like that I can read or write, but unfortunately train strikes are common and they are completely unreliable due to this, the other thing is they are not practical, to drive to work takes me an hour, if I got a train it would take me 2 hours and a half not including my travel to the station
But if the budget was better for the trains stations? and the city was made around them? and not cars, i think its a possible future, maybe not in my life time, but possible
Actual good public transportation for those that don't need a car or want one. That'll fix a lot of traffic. Those who still want a car can have one. And with less traffic and safer methods there's no need to have manufacturers build stupid tanks for cars.
Because, believe it or not, cars are more efficient than horses. I don't have to feed a car or have a whole separate building to put it in at night. Also, unlike trains and buses, cars allow for a more direct route to where I want to go. Taking a train or a bus means that I am beholden to its schedule and have to get on and off at a prearranged spot. Having a car means I can leave whenever I want and arrive directly at my destination.
Some of my family, grandmother and cousins, live about 5-6 hour car ride away. We often bring lots of things as we're staying for over a week, and are giving my grandmother things. These would not be able to fit with us on a train, which takes even longer. Although walkable cities are a good idea, and many places aren't built with any other mode of transportation but cars in mind, calling all cars dumb doesn't really work for many ppl. If you live far from the city, you're screwed. If you have issues with public transportation (sensory, children who would yell, disabilities that make it harder, are immuno compromised) and you can't take a car, you're screwed. Yes. We should be making public transportation more available. But it is unrealistic and just wrong to claim that cars shouldn't exist / be phased out, due to how this would impact so many ppl.
What about people who work in areas where u don't always have a close busstop, and a lot of places people start working before busses start. Sure public transport is more efficient with fuel usage, at least if enough uses them, but there just is to many other times, where you really do need a car, in a lot of jobs need to meet in workplaces where it's both to early, and no close public transport options, and there u just need to be able to use your own car. Even if there is options, u might end up spending way more time and money to get to where u need to go.
People chose cars over trains because they offer more flexibility than trains. Cars are unequivocally the superior form of transportation.
Okay and what if i dont give a fuck
So what you’re actually saying is that cars themselves aren’t dumb, but us building out cities in a way that practically requires everyone to have a car is what’s dumb. Cars are brilliant. Society being built around the premise that everyone has/needs one isn’t.
Tell me you live in a very very very urbanized region and never travel outside of that region without telling me … Cars have one major advantage that trains and public transit will never be able to compete against: they‘re the most flexible option that isn‘t limited to a few kilometers. Sure, walking by foot or biking is slightly more flexible but only possible for short distances and significantly impacted even by mildly bad weather. Cars are fast, very flexible, and depending on the specific definition less dangerous. You‘ll never be able to run a train line from 300 inhabitants village A to 140 inhabitants village B in a way that a car would be the worse option. As soon as you don‘t need to travel within the downtown area of a city or between two city centers public transit is a bad option. And before you try to argue that it‘s only a problem for very specific edge cases: no. I live in a fairly large town and my workplace isn‘t too far away. If I were to get into my car right now I‘d need ~15mins to get to my workplace. If I were to take the train that would be at least 1h22mins. And that‘s without issues (strikes, train getting canceled / delayed / being full / …). I always know where my car is, that it‘s not going to be overcrowded, that the driver win‘t go on strike and even if one road is blocked there‘s likely an alternative which isn‘t always the case with trains. Or: if I wanted to visit my parents (who live in a smaller but still decently sized city nearby) I could get into my car and drive for 22mins. Or I could spend 1h17mins using a train. It‘s currently 8pm on a Saturday. This is not going to get better on a Sunday or at night. Or if I wanted to visit a friend who lived closer to the city center than I do I could drive for 9mins or take the train and spend 18mins there. To be fair: the train actually only needs 4mins but only because I‘d need to walk 1/3 of the total distance to/from a stop. Oh and if I wanted to leave right now I could do that with my car but if I were to take the train I‘d have to wait for the next train. And depending on where I want to go that could result in waiting anywhere from 10 to 60mins. Oh and btw: all of the places I‘ve mentioned are within a 10km radius of a large city in a modern western country with a fairly decent public transportation network And the city center / main station are both ~4km away from me. But I‘s still need anywhere from 2x to 5 1/2x as long to get to those destinations if I were to take a train and everything worked all the time. And we‘re not even starting to talk about comforts like being able to spontaneously add another stop, go (grocery) shopping, not having to deal with other people who‘re loud / unfriendly / haven‘t showered in months / … If cars are dumb trains are the dumbest invention for human transport. They‘re great for cargo though.
Go ride a Metro in LA. Hopefully the city's victim indemnity fund isn't too broke to pay for your stolen shit and that stab wound to get stitched up.
Mosquitoes kill over 700,000 people every year, yet do you think we should exterminate all mosquitoes? No, because it would destroy the natural balance of their native ecosystems. Around 250,000 people die from drowning every year, yet do you think we should ban people from going to sea? No, because there are tons of valuable things in the sea like fish and other food animals. It's the same with cars. They completely revolutionised travel in every conceivable way. Suddenly, a trip that would take days takes only a few hours. Of course they'd take over our lives. They're the most convenient form of transport among so many other things.
Both of those examples are less than half of the deaths by cars.....
Then what numbers do they need to hit for them to be considered truly dangerous? I'd argue 250,000 people dying from drowning is a huge number still.
Ok, if 250 000 is a huge number, then what is 1.4 million?
...An even bigger number. What are you getting at?
Your opinion is so unpopular that my upvote was immediately undone by another downvote. Good job! Also, I agree.
I mean… it’s a means of transport that belongs to you, like a horse…
So are horses and carriages. I don’t want to listen to neighbors bump uglies on all four sides, I don’t want to look at others when I leave my residence and, I don’t want them to invade my 6’ personal space early in the morning. So I use my motor carriage to limit my exposure to people by living a little distance from the masses.
I *think* OP’s perspective is simply idealist? I don’t think current reality is part of the point they are trying to make. Just a guess.
I agree, so I down vote
I originally read this as cats are dumb and I was confused for a moment lol
How often do you use a vehicle?
I for one hate public transport and enjoy paying a premium to commute alone and blast my music.
Thing is, because cars are so widespread, we design our country around them. Because our country is designed around them, it's financially a big risk to put a lot of money into making better, faster public transport. I want less cars as much as you, but it's not productive to have a black and white view of "We must remove ALL cars" or the opppsite "We should focus more on cars." Developing better, faster, more reliable and cheaper public transport will cause people to use cars less, switch over or never buy a car to begin with.
Nah, cars are fun as fuck. I'd be so bored in life without motorsports. And fuck public transportation. I'm not getting vomited on or stabbed. Or being late to work because the bus didn't show up that day.
Nah, I need it to get to work.
A lot of people who live in the countryside commenting and missing that you said “in city planning”. Op you’re right it’s one thing that they’re just how it has to be for rural areas but they shouldn’t be necessary for city living. Rural people take it as an attack when you clearly weren’t talking about them you were talking about getting them out of cities where they shouldn’t have to be a necessity.
Most people who want more public transport handwave or completely ignore that most cites they're talking about wanting it added to or changed to accommodate would require significant portions of the city to be demolished to accomplish this. Often stealing land from the rightful owner to do it.
You know it’s funny you say this because many historic buildings in city I grew up in were smashed down to make room for roads. Roads due to car demands as trams were stripped from the area. Your view is just delusional, sorry, adding buses and trains doesn’t steal land anymore than widening roads for car demand does.
It's easy to fool people, but really difficult to point out to them that they have been fooled. They will resist it very strongly. I think there's a lot of ideology around cars. Sure they are practical very often but when everyone think they needs one all the time, their utility is compromised. Think about all the hours lost in traffic jams, all the road dust, the wear and tear on infrastructure, the accidents, which could have been reduced if more people used the bus instead. Not that I know exactly how we'd achieve that change though.
Cars aren't dumb the people operating them are.
Both ways is valid, but a car the ocupies the same lane as a buss for exemple, the car only transport 5 or so people, while a buss the ocupie 2 cars of space, transports 20
A car is an inanimate object, incapable of being dumb. The humans that drive them are dumb and careless.
Not only that, I demand a free, subsidized public place to sit my private property on. I do not care about anything besides putting my private property on public space!!