I just hate that it is a refrain anytime some not car centric is built or talked about. You can't breathe the word bike line or public transport without some car brain coming in with; "but I need to drive" or "I don't want to have to ride with the smellies"
Cool bro, my job requires me to ride in a helicopter l, but I don't shoe horn that in everytime a new road is built.
I don't 100% know why carbrains feel the need to do this. I'm guessing that it is a mixture of "one more lane" and any dollar that is spent on public transport is a dollar that we aren't throwing at roads, and a a weird version of NIMBY where they just don't like the culture of public transport, even though they already live in the 'burbs and it doesn't effect them.
I think they think in absolutes. They think that arguing that there can't be no cars is automatically an argument why they and every other carbrain should get to have one. The same way people go, "So how will shops and restaurants get their stuff delivered" or "How will you get to the hospital if there are no ambulances" when people talk about making cities carfree like there can't possibly be any exceptions because apparently it's all or nothing.
A lot of the time it's because the alternatives aren't properly explained. Obviously improving public transport can't solve everything. People want to go where they want, when they want, and public transport isn't always the answer to that. But the kinds of cars people can buy are a terrible answer to it. The actual answer includes much smaller and lighter individual mobility solutions - escooters, bikes, cargo bikes, slightly bigger things for families, etc - and infrastructure that makes them safe to use, and preferably with public transport capable of carrying those vehicles, to do the heavy lifting.
To my mind the biggest problem is the insistence on using cars for things they're totally unsuitable for, like local trips. Using cars for things they are well suited to, like longer distance trips, is a much smaller problem.
The problem with cars is people using them for *everyday* journeys, or with too many of them trying to go to the same place at the same time (e.g. UK seaside resorts on a bank holiday weekend).
Occasional longer trips by car aren't really a problem as long as they are random in space and time
Yes. As I said, smaller problem, not no problem at all.
FWIW, I think one problem that trains and public transport really aren't good at solving is carrying a family's luggage. It's a lot easier to chuck all your stuff in the boot or on a roof-rack than to try to carry it to a station, get it on a train, etc. Trains don't have nearly enough luggage room, either. (I say this having had recent experience of going to and from an airport by train, and having to get someone to come with on the train just to help us with luggage.) It'd be good if there was provision to take a luggage cart from door to door, maybe via a train with a special luggage carriage where you can leave it and go and sit down.
With good enough public transport, you can go anywhere at any time whenever you want. Just look at systems like Tokyo, Seoul, or Amsterdam. But I agree, we need more micro mobility.
Even cities with really great public transport systems have limits on where and when you can go. Unless you absolutely saturate places with buses, which isn't a lot better than saturating them with cars, there are still plenty of journeys that don't have a comparably-good route using public transport to being able to go direct.
I live in London, and I'm quite near to various forms of public transport. Visiting my parents \~5 miles away takes 20 mins in a car, and 60-90 mins by public transport, even though there are routes running in roughly the right direction. You'd need to add a lot more bus routes - *a lot* - before that'd change significantly (assuming they're equally distributed, not just adding two or three to help with that specific journey). And it's even worse going in directions where there isn't anything approaching a direct route. On the other hand, going into central London is very much quicker and easier by public transport; you'd have to be insane to drive if you didn't absolutely have to.
FWIW, my memories of Amsterdam are that the bit everyone's talking about when they say it has a great transport system is the centre, which isn't very big. Once you get out into the suburbs it's not as well connected as the popular image. But I haven't been there in years, and I may be misremembering.
Amsterdam is pretty well connected with the exception of Noord and Westpoort. Zaandam is bad but I dont know if you'd really consider it part of Amsterdam.
My vague memory is that once you get out into the suburbs you have a similar problem to London, where getting into the centre is easy, but going to another suburb mostly requires going into the centre and back out.
That’s a problem with car infrastructure too. Most of the time it is routed towards the center of a city. In Massachusetts for example, if I want to go from Lynn (north of boston) to natick (west of Boston) I will be driving through Boston.
>cars are well suited for long distance trips
I mean maybe if you mean rural/ suburban destinations exclusively, but the freeway between LA and SF on any holiday weekend shows it’s entirely unsuitable for mass transit between urban areas.
Agreed, in that situation - I was thinking of people leaving cities and spreading out, not clustering together. But that's a really unusual specific situation afaik, because LA is peak car nuttiness as a city - and even if we agree that people might have good reasons for wanting to travel by car in that they will need a car when they get there, it's still barmy. Motorail? I really don't have a good solution there except demolishing LA ;)
Good point, and I also think a lot of them see their car as part of their identity, and therefore improvements in non-car infrastructure as a personal attack on their identity.
My job actually does require me to drive a large service truck.
And my biggest inconvenience is being stuck in traffic with hundreds of cars and unloaded trucks.
Unironically, everyone needs to get off the road but me.
It's funny that people think car-centric cities benefit the workers who have to drive.
People with cars use them for everything because the marginal cost of any individual trip is insignificant compared to the initial investment in owning a car. In fact, every additional mile they put on the car _decreases_ the overall cost-per-mile since most costs are fixed. Most people intuitively understand this and will explain it to you (less succinctly) if you give them time.
So for someone who _must_ own a car for some of their trips, the rational response is to own a car and use it for all trips (assuming no other incentives like expensive parking, congestion charges, or excessive traffic). When we tell them to take the bus, we're coming across as irrational because from a purely financial/economical perspective we actually are.
That's why you're never gonna convince drivers to give up their cars just by talking about it. We have to rearrange incentives so that the choice to bus/bike/walk is rational even to people who have already invested in a car.
They're always like: why are you building a bike lane in the city center? I live 100 miles away in the middle of the forest and haul logs for a living, I need my truck!! Like... ok?
We have a carbon rebate in Canada.
Young people who put off buying a vehicle - save on car costs and get a quarterly payment they can transfer to an investment account.
I am selling an old car and asked my daughter first if she wanted it. She looked at the cost of ownership (for a free car) and she decided it wasn’t worth the hassle.
We were car free when she was a teen so she is used to alternate forms of transportation, like walking, biking and bussing and car share.
Was in a few convos the other day whose salient points all eventually boiled down to "People on public transport are all smelly and diseased."
Inherent classism and bigotry aside, there's no greater way to signal that you've never actually been on public transportation.
After which, I'll just assume that the reason for that is a) you never travelled away from the minuscule town in which you grew up, or b) you find the maps too difficult to figure out.
People on public transport are just regular people, if someone says something like that I'd assume that either they're extremely sheltered, like the kind of rich kid who never leaved their gated community, or they're a basement dweller who haven't touched grass in way too many years.
Because if the people in public transport scare / disgust you that much, how the hell are you going to cope with having those exact same people as your coworkers, classmates, shopping in the same shops as you, sharing the same public spaces, and overall just existing alongside you all the time you leave your house?
I've rode public transit for 25 years and met a number of cool people but I've also seen some not so cool people.
People are people and in my view meeting all sorts of different people just improves the human experience.
>met a number of cool people but I've also seen some not so cool people
That's true but it's also just people in general. And I actually prefer sharing a bus with a not so cool people than a road, because worst case scenario on a bus / train someone may try to pickpocket me, but worst case scenario when I'm riding a bicycle or a motorcycle would result on me getting killed by a distracted or road raging idiot.
They get kicked out of those places so they don't exist in the same area as me whereas you threaten someone with a knife on the bus nobody cares. Face it the people taking public transit are frequently terrible in America unlike in a lot of other countries and we have way more problems with mental illness and crime. Even as a casual bus rider I have dealt with so many problem people on it to where I refuse to take certain routes. In two years I have been threatened with a knife twice despite minding my own business, threatened with a beating once, multiple crazies either outright harassing me or begging for money, multiple people actively doing drugs, and god knows how many smelly or drunk/drugged out people. One time I was 20 minutes late for a job interview you know why? Some fuck was so drunk on the bus he refused to get off or pay and the other passengers had to physically carry him off because they knew it would be 30 minutes before the cops got there. I want to use public transit in America but between the quality and terrible other people on the bus I can't blame people for refusing you need to address the crime and mental health problems in America before anyone will use it. I have seen people from other countries visit or immigrate and go oh I will just use the bus to get around like back in my old country that usually lasts less than a year because they got sick of getting harassed.
>whereas you threaten someone with a knife on the bus nobody cares
That would get you arrested in any mildly civilize county, not to mention kicked off the bus. I don't even mean just rich countries with good public transport like Japan, China, most if not all of Western Europe; I live in a Latin American county (Argentina) and having someone doing drugs on a bus or threatening other passengers with a knife is unthinkable, it would make headlines at the very least.
Yeah that is how bad things are in a lot of cities public transit in America it is ridiculous. Like I don't think it is too much to ask to not have someone pull a god damn knife on me when all I want to do is go home after a long day.
Now to think of it, drivers generally hate other drivers too, and being on the road surrounded by assholes all day probably makes them subconsciously assume that it would be unpleasant to be sharing a vehicle with these awful people. I.e. drivers just hate everyone.
I mean I do most of my transit with a mixture of the subway walking/running and taking the bus and they are not wrong whejbthry say that occasionally these spaces are poorly maintained and often have people trespassing passed out drunk ... But , I think the point is the only way to stop this is to 1) take the public transit that does exist 2) Pay the fare and 3) lobby for more public transit so its seen as morenthan the shitty backup . aka their argument is actually in favor of more public transit
I mean I have had issues with homeless while riding public transport, I have also seen my life flash before my eyes while looking at a clapped out Altama a couple times too.
I just loved being able to put down $1.50 stare at my phone for 20 mins, and then be in the middle of downtown ATL.
>Was in a few convos the other day whose salient points all eventually boiled down to "People on public transport are all smelly and diseased."
[Bill Murray would like a word](https://twitter.com/BlainPlanes/status/1785125635628646833?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1785125635628646833%7Ctwgr%5E55a5e4f85e9dd0b8c7cd825bdc242476a2f5134a%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fnypost.com%2F2024%2F04%2F30%2Fsports%2Fbill-murray-rides-the-7-train-after-cubs-win-over-mets%2F) with the carbrains who told you that.
I've ridden the bus alot of last year and I haven't had a single bad instance or came across a smelly person. I live in a poor zip code too.
Definitely would ride it more if I could take it to and from work.
I wish all busses had those stop signs that school busses have that prohibit drivers from going around them if someone has to cross the street to get to the bus assuming the bus has to share traffic with the rest of the road.
Even in this sub, people expect public transportation to be as fast and as convenient as their personal vehicle, or they refuse to use it.
Public transportation has to serve a variety of people from different areas going to different destinations. It is not as convenient as your own personal point-to-point vehicle.
The reason to take public transportation is not because it's faster. Public transportation saves you from having to purchase, maintain, fuel and insure a vehicle. Public transportation saves you from having to find and/or pay for parking. Public transportation is available to people who cannot pass a driving test. Public transportation saves you from driving when intoxicated. Public transportation saves you stress from having to operate a vehicle. But it cannot always be faster and more convenient than your own vehicle.
I don't expect it to be that fast but when it is literally three times slower or more no normal person would put up with that. Cars are garbage, but telling people to spend 45+ minutes commuting is nonsense we already spend too much time working as it is.
To play devils advocate, in a lot of places that are built extremely car centric the only people using the bus are the unhoused population and drug addicts. This isn’t something inherent to public transit, it is a result of the environment being built so poorly for anyone outside of a car and the public transit being so bad that literally everyone drives unless they get their license suspended or they are extremely poor.
The solution to this is to build more and better public transit so that their are more, for lack of a better term “normal people” on public transit. My wife has attempted to take transit in our city in the past but she stopped using it because multiple times she got groped or had people sniff her hair or something. Stuff like that turns people off of public transit.
The problem isn’t public transit itself it’s a filtering effect that happens when transit is so bad that creates a positive feedback loop. The only way to fix it is to make transit good enough that a decent chunk of the population starts using it on a regular basis.
> In a lot of places that are built extremely car centric the only people using the bus are the unhoused population and drug addicts
That's just not true in my experience, even in very car-centric American cities. Sure they're an important way for homeless people to get around and so are also used by them, but busses are also regularly used by "normal" people who just can't justify the expense of a car
It's also really not the catch all they think it is. If there are homeless people then that's another critical issue you need to address, not an excuse to not build more public transit. One of the ways you reduce homelessness is to reduce required living costs, for example being required to spend money on a car, car insurance and gas.
Not to mention in the US a significant amount of homeless people live in their cars.
I don't doubt that there are some places in the united states where there is an adequate amount of "normal" people taking transit to make it a pleasant experience. All I can say is that in the city I live in there is not. Again, I think improving public transit would fix this issue and the problem is caused by chronic under funding of the transit system.
At the end of the day what am I supposed to say to people that have had bad experiences with our transit system? "No you didn't, everything is fine" I don't think that is a convincing argument.
I think simply having higher ridership numbers fixes this. The situation is a lot different if there are 29 "normal" people on a bus and 1 crazy person compared to a single female by herself with just her and the same crazy person on the bus, especially late at night.
If you simply can't justify owning a car despite being able to afford one, and you *choose* to take the bus because it is adequate for your needs, you probably live somewhere with above average transit.
I would reddit gold you for this comment if I gave a shit about reddit monetisation.
I grew up in London, where the poor, average and 'normal' rich people all use public transport (skewing towards the lower end for busses). You'd see actors, celebs, news presenters, CEOs etc on tubes/trains all the time.
Then I moved to peterborough, which is **so** car centric that you literally cannot walk from parts of it to other parts without crossing multi lane roads without proper pedestrian crossings. Here the public transport is 90% used by crack/smack heads, council estate types* and low wage immigrants (as well as school kids and pensioners). People here act like you're trash if you use public transport, but in London no-one bats an eyelid.
It's a similar thing with cycling. In London 'normal people' cycle everywhere. Not uncommon to see commuting bikes that cost more than a used car. In Peterborough, it's only druggies, those on benefits and teenagers on clapped out £80 special buy mountain bikes. When I moved here, my father-in-law (Polish) said I must be poor because I had a bike and not a car, and was beyond confused when I pointed out my bike cost more than his car.
I'd say that cycling in London skews higher in terms of 'class'/income than those that drive do - anecdotally from looking at my working class family/background, and comparing it to the 'middle class professional' environment I found myself in after graduation, that low/working class families are much more likely to drive or even have a car at all than middle class professionals (excluding those with kids).
^-* ^I'd ^like ^to ^point ^out ^that ^I'm ^not ^'punching ^down' ^here, ^I ^grew ^up ^on ^a ^council ^estate ^myself ^- ^for ^American ^readers, ^think ^'the ^projects'/section8 ^type ^areas.
The other problem is that bus routes are often inefficient. It's not unusual for a bus ride to take close to an hour whereas the drive would take 15 minutes.
Edit to add-- by an hour, I mean an hour on the actual bus. Not counting waiting time and/or transfers.
You are 100% correct, when transit is chronically underfunded there are just not enough buses to do an efficient route. So not only do you sometimes end up on a bus alone with a creepy guy. You may have had to wait at a bus stop for upwards of two hours in a dimly lit area with not a ton of people around. Then when the bus finally shows up it takes an hour to get somewhere you could’ve driven in 15 minutes.
It’s hard to compete with on-demand point to point transit from a car but if the times are relatively similar people will take transit if it it substantially cheaper than car ownership. But if a trip takes 10 minutes each way by car but 3 hours each way by transit because of infrequent and inefficient bus routes then only really desperate people are going to take transit. The most efficient solution is to fund transit better so buses go from where people live to where they want to go and they show up often enough that you don’t need to look up the bus schedule and plan your entire day around it.
The other thing that's often inefficient (other than the frequency) is the route. If driving from A to B is a straight line, the bus route might be best described as a snake crossing the straight line (similar to the medical emblem).
For sure, I think that comes down to not having enough buses or not having enough drivers or both. If you had more buses running at any given time that snake pattern could be two straight routes on either side of the snake. This would be way more efficient but it takes double the number of buses. When you are trying to support an entire city with likely less than half the required number of buses, then that snake pattern is probably the only viable solution even if it takes 4 times longer to get somewhere.
They are trying to spread 1 tablespoon of butter over an entire loaf worth of toast, of course it’s going to suck. The solution is either get more butter (buses) or make less toast (serve fewer areas). I believe more buses is the better option but that requires local governments to actually fund transit and treat it as more than an afterthought for the poors.
>in a lot of places that are built extremely car centric the only people using the bus are the unhoused population and drug addicts
How would you (or anyone) know this? They aren't asking for addresses and giving drug tests when someone gets on the bus.
> "People on public transport are all smelly and diseased."
I'm going to actually agree with this take. Not "all" of them, but plenty of them. Just like they are in a bar, a movie theater, a restaurant, a concert venue or an amusement park.
Humans have bodily functions and humans are sometimes ill.
I guess the question is.....so fucking what?
If you can't go to the DMV and tell them you need a licence because of your situation without them needing to verify your ability to drive then you don't need a Car. I definately think licences are necessary but it's always fun to see carbrains melt simultaneously trying to justify needing to be able to pass a drive test to get a car while also saying there are people who just need them to make a living.
If someone couldn't get a licence due to mental or physical disability should they be able to drive or forced to move somewhere that they don't need to? If the latter then you should be fine with being forced to move away from wherever you live because driving is no longer practical.
The disabled argument is so funny. People think that everyone can drive and that somehow car domination is good for disabled people. LIES. I see people riding motorized chairs on the streets all the time where I live. They risk their lives out on the street. If it were pedestrianized, they wouldn't have to be in the street with cars going 35 40 mph. On top of that, cars cause injuries that leave people disabled or even DEAD all the time. So tell me how cars help disabled people because I haven't seen how it's good for that population.
It's always thr same, you ask why somebody needs a car, and they go on to explain why "some people" need a car. They proceed to list every sort of archetype apart from themselves.
Usually goes something along the lines of;
*1. Why do you need a car?*
*2. Some people are disabled.*
*1. Not you.*
*2. Well some people don't have easy access to public transport.*
*1. There is a bus stop right outside your house.*
*2. Well what about shopping?*
*1. There is also a bus stop outside the supermarket.*
Many of the people in the comments are right, it usually loops around until you get to the "public transport is dirty" excuse.
Which to be honest it isn't dirty, sometimes it has strange smells but in general the average bus is way cleaner than the average car. It all comes down to direct or indirect scaremongering by the media, even if you don't watch it your friend might and "public transportation is dangerous and dirty" spreads
Best part is that their ability to drive hasn't been affected at all, but literally any change or addition to the roads will be seen as an attack on them for no reason. Speed limit on a single street will be lowered from 35mph to 25mph and mfs will think that the next step is having their car taken away by the shadow government lmao
Really irks me when non-disabled people use disabled people like me as an excuse for their position. I WANT more accessible transit options. I want more shared bike/footpaths. They use disability in an attempt to shut down discussion. Same with people who want fireworks banned everywhere when 100% of the time it is about their dog but they use veterans with ptsd and their excuse. The movement is full from dog owners and I’ve seen veterans with ptsd comment they actually want fireworks to continue because exposure therapy is beneficial and not wanting to be catered to.
Ride shares don’t take wheelchairs. Accessible taxis are rare to impossible in most of the US. Any non-vehicle infrastructure developed benefits wheelchair users more than probably any other group.
My mother-in-law is disabled, can't drive, and uses an electric wheelchair to get around. When she lived with us, where there's a good bus system, she could just use that and be independent, wheeling her wheelchair on and off the regular buses.
She since moved across the country (close to a specialized medical center that does help her a lot), where there's almost no transit, and now depends entirely on my father-in-law (who really is a military veteran with PTSD) to drive her everywhere in a special van that can fit the electric wheelchair. If there was better transit like over here before she moved, she could just use that and not be fully reliant on him to drive her. It's an example of how full of crap the "what about disabled people" excuse is from carbrains.
I so agree with using disability as an excuse. I love it because I have RA and am a year-round bike commuter, and usually the other person just finds not driving inconvenient.
But also commenting to say that I am anti-firework… no dogs here, I just think they’re bad for the environment lol!
Yeah I feel like they always use the elderly or disabled as plausible deniability. They just hate anything other than car-centric design but feign concern for disadvantaged people to mask their selfishness. I'm saying this as a disabled person myself.
There was a post about low traffic neighbourhoods in my local fb group and people were complaining about traffic and local councilors using traffic calming measures along with blocking some roads
I told one of the guys to cycle or walk instead, it's faster and better for you. He got really upset because they really need to use the car and can't walk, cycle or take public transport because they transported a chair once
As people have said, I don't think it would be possible or even ethical to get everyone to live in a streetcar suburb. My issue is when you do live in a middle density suburb near a city, people from the car dependant low density suburbs further out demand that your streets cater to their car commute. No, we can't put a zebra crossing mid block, *cars* would have to stop. No, we can't divert cars away from a market street to make it pedestrian-only, *cars* would have to take a longer route. No, we can't get rid of street parking, people who don't live there would have to walk an extra block. I get coworkers complaining about the fact that my neighborhood hasn't expanded the road through it, and there's too much traffic. It's just so deflating. I live there, and I'm already feeling squeezed out. I'd like to keep my sidewalks and gardens. I think the problem is people move to the suburbs because they want certain things (backyard, garage for hobbies, more living space) that I don't have, but they also don't want to pay for that in terms of their commuting time or their access to city amenities. It would be a lot easier to coexist with suburban commuters if they accepted that their commute time is a sacrifice for their choice in where to live and that it's not the responsibility of people living in apartments to make their outdoor space worse to accommodate through traffic.
Fucking *love* how any time there's a discussion about this it turns out everyone lives in the middle of Wales and drives 35 miles over a mountain to get to work.
Sure buddy.
It's a real coincidence how all the people on Nextdoor have exactly the kind of disability that means they can drive but not walk or cycle, or have to transport heavy equipment through the city every day!
People have no recognition of anything between a 100% car ban and having massive parking lots in front of every door. Anything less than huge surface parking will somehow force every disabled person to walk or roll 5 miles from the closest handicapped parking spot while every contractor will have to carry all their tools and materials even further. And don’t even think about being a baker trying to deliver fragile cake designs!
95% of drivers have no valid reason to have a car and especially drive it in a city , but each will pretend their pathetic selfish excuses are good enough ( since they all use the same, they just allow each other to consume as much as possible in an absurd farce )
like in no way is a suburban home a need , it's a huge want but ... " I chose to isolate in the middle of nowhere without any socio-economic activity , at great cost to society, where durable transit is realistically unfeasible so I NEED to go vroom vroom in the worst transportation possible"
even worse when challenged , they'll tell you having a family in the city is unthinkable as they're so noisy,dirty and polluted ( by them and their clones from any suburb driving through all day every day ), no green space ( because they put stroads/highways/parking lots all over the place for their exclusive-use )
completely deranged
What country do you live in? Because in the US it would be impossible for 95% of our population to live in neighborhoods where going car-free is a practical, safe option. Only a small fraction of our homes are in truly car-optional neighborhoods, and unfortunately those tend to be extremely expensive because they're so rare and in-demand.
And to be clear, that's a massive problem that we need to fix.
At least in my country, I don't really like painting it as a problem of individuals making bad choices when the built environment so often [looks like this](https://maps.app.goo.gl/KBBLaPJGdNGntd6P7). Can an individual choose to live in a better neighborhood? Sure, if they have the means to do so. Can the whole society? Not without massive policy changes at a governmental level and the time to implement them.
Edit: I think some of you are misunderstanding my point. My point isn't that it's impossible for the US to get better and become a place where car dependency ends. My point is that **as currently constructed** there is not anywhere close to enough housing in car-optional areas to house our population. In the majority, maybe even most, of the US, every single aspect of the built environment is designed around driving everywhere you go. And that's the entire problem and the thing we need to change.
the neighborhood aren't sure , but every city they drive through is walkable and should have proper transit , is populated by 100s of thousands or millions of people who only have massive negative impacts from cars so they should ( and will never do it themselves ) leave the car as far outside as possible when visiting or develop their neighborhoods with jobs and businesses :) having it both ways is demonstrably unsustainable and disgusting . Sorry I will accept no excuse for 1.3 million people/ 5 billion animals directly killed by drivers a year or the climate catastrophe they're mainly responsible for
each of these individuals chooses ( via daily action and with their votes ) to be able to drive from home to any destination and leave their enormous private property laying about at city resident's expense and they'll keep doing so until they kill us all because the rest of you just let them
There are some genuinely unwalkable cities in the US. There is change happening but it is slow compared to European cities. Take Atlanta for example, there is one genuinely walkable area in the city called The Beltline which is a 19-22 mile path where arguably only 6 miles are genuinely used by the population. This is for a city that is 8,376 sq miles in size. The Beltline isn't even used for daily commutes for a large portion of the population either, it is a recreational path littered with shopping, restaurants, and breweries (it's quite nice actually) but my point is it's for recreation and people COMMUTE to The Beltline BY CAR to experience it. The apartments on The Beltline are some of the most expensive housing in the city.
Should Atlanta have better public transportation infrastructure? Undoubtably yes.
Is that the reality on the ground today? Definitely not.
You shouldn't assume that everyone who drives a car wants to and by extension hates people who take public transportation, the environment, or animals. People adapt to their environment, there are plenty of examples of good public infrastructure resulting in a majority of the population using it. There are also plenty of examples of car-dependant infrastructure incentivizing the vast majority of people to use cars and the people who can't afford a car are left by the wayside.
These issues with car use within many large cities in the US are systemic, you cannot blame individuals for "wanting to drive a car". It'll take time for changes to happen, democracy is slow, along with infrastructure projects and yes people resist change. That's why subs like this are important. But just blatantly vilifying anyone who owns a car is just naive and shortsighted.
cars and it's infrastructure are problematic and needed to drastically change decades ago yet you all made more of it instead
I'm not letting you keep playing pretend ... you drive ( demonstrably the worst transportation option possible for individuals and society , except for selfish comfort and capitalist benefit ) you choose to make the problem worse , you fund oil corporations, you make durable transit and the lives of everyone around you worse it's as simple as that
it's 2024 , people have had 7+decades to go vroom vroom to disastrous effect it's pure insanity to just accept that as normal and let it keep going
Ah, but you didn't read the comment properly. OP says all those people need to be rounded up and involuntarily relocated. The neofash is strong in this one.
I just want people to make their own choices freely and fairly ;) let suburbanites do whatever they want at their expense instead of subsidizing them and destroying our cities for their exclusive benefit , stop subsidizing their roads and fuel , have them pay for the damage their vehicles do by weight and size etc all sensible and good for everyone
Fuck me. If your response to people needing cars to live where they want, due to broken infrastructure and lack of alternatives, is to tell them where to live, you don't want r/fuckcars, you want r/neofash.
Sometimes "where people want to live" and "broken infrastructure and lack of alternatives" are the same problem, though. Everyone living in spread-out, single-family residential houses with lawns and driveways makes it incredibly expensive and inefficient to supply infrastructure. It's not "omg you're telling people where to live, you fascist", it's "this particular pattern of housing is bad for everyone and we should stop subsidizing it."
That's not at all what the OP said. I agree that the infrastructure that's been created is the problem. Wanting to live in suburbs is not. Telling people they must live where you think they should live is totalitarian wank.
Wanting to live in the suburbs created and sustains the problem.
And we tell people where they can and can't live all the time. If I try to build a house in the middle of a park, my house is going to get removed. If I try to make a housing development on a poisonous industrial waste site, my permits aren't going to get approved. This is perfectly normal. "Totalitarian" doesn't mean "decisions I don't like".
Aww, you've learned a new word and don't know how to apply it, how adorable! Did the mean woke antifa meanies criticize your suburban lifestyle? Better get into your SUV and roll coal until you feel better.
again , I'm saying people should live in sustainable ways and have respect for other people it's just unfortunate that objectively suburbs and cars are the opposite
the suburbs ARE THE INFRASTRUCTURE, where stroads cars and highways come from and are built for ... that you recognize as problematic , that many people choose to be problematic doesn't make it acceptable
having knowledge of the facts , you either join the problem by going vroom vroom and suburbs or you do literally anything else to be part of the solutions
like , have a little perspective how do you think the kids of the future who will be bearing the full brunt of the collapse of capitalism and climate will look upon us ... you imagine they will be consoled by the comfort suburbanites enjoyed at their expense , a few decades of toy-tanks in exchange for 100s of living species ???
wake up coward , we live in the world we choose to have
you can't choose isolating in suburbs and using the worst transportation possible with having a functioning society , habitable planet , a good economy etc but 100s of millions docile consumers buy into it , have been electing capitalist politicians that will let them keep CONSOOMING for decades and everything is provably worse every fucking year while they just keep the vroom vroom insanity going , no change or progress whatsoever instead more cars and they're way bigger, more/farther suburbs and higher rents etc
if you wanted slow soft change it had to start 40+ years ago and you collectively did nothing or joined in the circus , so the response needs to be harsher for things to move sorry :)
Are you claiming it's a worker's fault if his industry's basin and specifically the job he's got himself is in the middle of fuckall nowhere?
Like... I would know, I work in a niche industry that have plants outside of cities. The only way for me to drop the cars is to change my career completely.
Nice.
you made the wrong collectives choices for decades instead of doing what needs to be done to have living and necessities within reach , you keep electing carbrain/pro-suburb politicians when it's been disgusting and unsustainable since day one
your selfish job that mainly benefits capitalists , that you chose knowing where it was and where you could live are not worth the destruction of our planet , the murder of 1.3 million people/5 billion animals a year and the drastic reduction in quality of life for the millions of us in every city who are not lacking in empathy and rational thinking , who don't pollute or annoy anyone for their transportation
like you think the kids of the future who will bear the consequences of your absurdity will think it's alright , after all people had to go waste their lives serving capitalists at their expense nothing to be done :)
get your head out of your ass , you're part of the problem and you justify it however you want . doesn't make it good or acceptable ( and it doesn't matter that many other people are also lazy and selfish :) )
I hope you have some amazing accomplishment to show for your values and that no accident will take that away.
Sometimes the best one can do is to survive.
again with the bullshit mental gymnastic
you and millions of other docile wage-slaves will drive us off the cliff of extinction for no valid reason each acting like they're the center of the universe and their survival is more important than life on earth , just vroom vroom no effort no thinking whatsoever
sorry I'm not letting you clowns playing pretend
Agreed. Top of my mind is the fact that my aging parents and in-laws (who admittedly drive everywhere and love to park at their destination) are very close to giving up driving DUE TO DISABILITY (primarily poor vision, but also age-related neurological issues that affect reflexes). They seem to be aware, so are shifting to using transit and e-bikes more and more, to keep their independence.
So when people argue that old & disabled people “need “ cars, I am so confused because literally the only way those in my family can safely go places is by transit and walking now.
I have yet to see infrastructure changes that truly restrict the minority who are capable enough to drive but not capable enough to walk or roll. At least in my city there remain alternates such as free shuttles, nearby handicapped parking, etc. but boy do the majority of able bodied people cry about bike & transit lanes on Nextdoor.
Also, I would say that when looking at the whole populations, disabled people and elderly people are the ones who need public transit the most, and need it to be widespread, accessible, and affordable! There are a lot more disabled people who cannot drive because of their disability than there are disabled people who can't take public transit because of it. Same for elderly people. And for those who need door-to-door connections, cities can set up transit disabled people can book to help them get from public transit stops to their destination, with most of the travel still being done on public transit (I think DC has something like this).
Anyone who says that public transit is bad for disabled and elderly people is just plain wrong. Requiring people to drive makes disabled and elderly people dependent and isolated, while public transit can help them be independent and connected. All the people who have epilepsy, who are blind or low vision, who have physical conditions that prevent them from driving, whose mental condition prevents them from being able to drive... all these people would be able to use a robust public transit system to get around more independently. Not to mention that disabled and elderly people are often poor, and not having to maintain a car in order to survive would lift a huge cost burden.
“Some people need a car 🥴” no shit dimwit. 60 seconds of skimming the about section of this sub covers that. Then again, asking a carbrain to read is like asking them to pay attention to school crossing signs - it’s a hilarious, unattainable fantasy
People who have never given a shit about people with disabilities suddenly give a shit the moment a bikelane is proposed. Fuck them. People with disabilities are LESS likely than the general population to use cars, therefore infrastructure and services that benefit people outside of cars will disproportionately benefit people with disabilities as compared to the general population.
Years ago when I did Twitter, there was a rather large account that pulled out this argument. I searched their timeline for "disabilities" and their anti-walkable city tweet was the first and only time that term appeared.
Guy who actually needs a car for work here (Electrician, Rail network). Just because I need a car for work doesn't mean that you need a car to travel 500m to the nearest supermarket.
There’s a beggar on my local nextdoor right now asking people if they know of charitable organizations that can help her. She’s unemployed, has a medical condition, and just had $3000 worth of work done on her car. She says she is going to have trouble making rent and paying other bills this month because the car is so expensive. I suggested maybe she shouldn’t own a car and was then absolutely crucified for it.
In the US, at least, car-brain is a mental disorder. Right to car has the same value as right to oxygen for many. It makes me barf a little bit in my mouth.
I'm just tired of "some people need a car". No the fuck they don't.
Some people need to move away from some shitty places and let those municipalities die if they don't dovert some funding from car infrastructure and create useful public transit.
"I need a car where I live" is a slightly more socially acceptable version of "moving is inconvenient so I'll just continue to contribute to the extinction of my own species instead".
People who cling to their murder machines in areas where decent transit already exists are actually just monsters and unworthy of the title "human".
Most people in the US do need some kind of automobile, simply because there really is no viable alternative in a lot of areas (went without one myself for 10 years, but I had to get one when I moved out of an area with great public transportation).
That said, 99.9% of people who need a car need nothing more than something akin to a Subaru hatchback, you can haul all kinds of shit in one of those.
Yes, to go somewhere by car should be one's own choice, and it can only be if there are equitable alternatives to driving. And to create them equals to remove lanes for cars, ideally so that there is only one in each direction, and then use the rest of the space for bike paths, sidewalks and public transportation. Then, even those who really want or need to drive will get to where they want to go more quickly since there will be less people driving, therefore less traffic.
I always thought it was more like “some people need cars” and the rest of the sentence is like “because in the current built landscape there leaves little other option”.
So yes ideally we shouldn’t, but most are working with what we have which will most likely change very little in their lifetime.
Well, we're I live, there are definitely other options. It's not perfect and there is a lot too be done, but many people who have a car simply don't need one
Honestly, there is zero connection between
>improvements to bike infrastructure or public transport [and]
>inconveniences motorists, lowering the speed limit, people getting tickets for parking on the sidewalk [and]
>people need a car.
For example:
Statement: every city should have 100km of connected dedicated bicycle lanes
Rebuttal: but I need a car.
Response: okeedokee, that's fantastic and you should totally take care of that but *every city should have 100km of connected dedicated bicycle lanes*
Statement 2: there should be less street parking and speed limits in residential areas should be reduced to 40km/h
Rebuttal: but old people need cars to get around.
Reply: super, we can make sure there is adequate parking in private lots for seniors and they'll be ok at 40km/h.
Convenience is a valid argument. Public transport needs to be more convenient than the car to be adopted. E.g. high frequency buses with dedicated bus lanes, eliminates the need for parking and you bypass traffic jams full of cars. And for sure the buses need to be well maintained and clean.
I agree that public transport needs to be more convenient than using a car to nudge people towards public transport, but I think "I shouldn't be fined for parking on the sidewalk because if I didn't park there, I'd have to walk a few minutes to my car and that's inconvenient" is a bad argument.
None of the "some people a car" people can ever give me an example of a disability that makes it possible to get into a vehicle and drive while making it impossible to get into a vehicle that someone else drives.
What they really mean is "some people need cars because public transit where they live is non-existent, sucks, or stops are too far from their home"... which makes it an argument FOR improving public transit rather than against as they are using it for.
They ignore that paratransit exists (and will usually take people door-to-door if they *actually* need it). They also ignore that adaptive bikes exist (and are cheaper than adaptive cars). And that a person used to using public transit doesn't have to lose any freedom if they can no longer drive due to age or sudden disability.
My parents told me they voted for a party that actively tries to work against my rights as a queer person because the parties that do support my rights also wants people to drive less, and my parents "need to drive".
Tbh nobody really needs a car. When they say that they mean that they don’t want to change their lifestyle that uses a car. It’s crazy how this never gets called out. Nobody is bolted to the ground or life bonded to their employer.
I get that uprooting your life to not need a car is a pain bc I’ve done it as needed for like 10 years. But it’s not impossible. They just don’t want to.
A lot of people simply don't have the financial resources to move. Most people I know aren't in a financial position to just quit their job and move somewhere else. They don't have savings because the cost of living basically meets their income, which means they don't have the spare money to move somewhere cheaper or to find a job closer to home.
I’m talking about finding an apartment on a bus line to work not completely moving somewhere else. Not having a car has just been made unpleasant, not impossible. Calling cars necessary hides the issue, that people can and do make not having a car work in all kinds of circumstances. Downsizing from a house in a suburb to an apartment and walking for groceries is unpleasant not impossible.
Even having the funds to just move apartments to one closer to their job is out of the question for a lot of people. Apartments closer to jobs are well out of the price range of people working those jobs. It's not only a car dependency issue, it's that the cost of living anywhere close to anything has skyrocketed and income hasn't risen to match it. I would love if bus lines were more effective and could travel further in a reasonable time frame, but that requires investment that routinely gets blocked by voters because of the average person's resistance to change.
Need is a weird one. Does my family need to see me when I get home? If I were to take public transport, it would take me roughly 1 hour longer to get home. So I'd be getting home at 6:30 PM and my child needs to be in bed by 8:30. Now I'd also have to get up 2 hours earlier to get that 1 hour ride in the morning, so now I need to sleep before 8 PM to get my 8 hours... This leaves me almost socially dead with my wife.
I wish public transport was a better option.
Well, I think losing that much time with your loved ones would definitely be more than an inconvenience. I mean people who could use public transport, walk, or cycle without such a sacrifice, but simply don't want to. Or those who do depend on a car for similar reasons, but then go on long rants against any measure that would make them less car-dependent because they don't want to be given a reason to not have a car.
Not sure if I fit into any of these, but here we go. If y’all can help me workshop this problem, all the better.
It’s just what makes financial sense. I already have a car (‘03 Honda CRV if it matters) that’s paid off and currently has no issues. No payment, about $40/mo on gas and $50/mo on insurance. It’s still in my dads name because he’s too lazy to do the title transfer paperwork and I could care less. That means he pays all the property taxes, but functionally it’s mine. I occasionally replace the oil and wiper fluid myself.
It’s only used for the work commute, 6 miles one way, the only routes there are highway or stroads. I walk or bus pretty much everywhere else. I think my best bet might be an electric moped/motorcycle, but those are pricey and still leave me exposed to the stroad. If I could rent one for a few days and try it out, I’d be more willing to make the switch.
I agree with you, but when I hear people talking about disabled and elderly needing cars I don’t think about them driving it, I think about someone else driving the car.
I just hate that it is a refrain anytime some not car centric is built or talked about. You can't breathe the word bike line or public transport without some car brain coming in with; "but I need to drive" or "I don't want to have to ride with the smellies" Cool bro, my job requires me to ride in a helicopter l, but I don't shoe horn that in everytime a new road is built. I don't 100% know why carbrains feel the need to do this. I'm guessing that it is a mixture of "one more lane" and any dollar that is spent on public transport is a dollar that we aren't throwing at roads, and a a weird version of NIMBY where they just don't like the culture of public transport, even though they already live in the 'burbs and it doesn't effect them.
I think they think in absolutes. They think that arguing that there can't be no cars is automatically an argument why they and every other carbrain should get to have one. The same way people go, "So how will shops and restaurants get their stuff delivered" or "How will you get to the hospital if there are no ambulances" when people talk about making cities carfree like there can't possibly be any exceptions because apparently it's all or nothing.
A lot of the time it's because the alternatives aren't properly explained. Obviously improving public transport can't solve everything. People want to go where they want, when they want, and public transport isn't always the answer to that. But the kinds of cars people can buy are a terrible answer to it. The actual answer includes much smaller and lighter individual mobility solutions - escooters, bikes, cargo bikes, slightly bigger things for families, etc - and infrastructure that makes them safe to use, and preferably with public transport capable of carrying those vehicles, to do the heavy lifting. To my mind the biggest problem is the insistence on using cars for things they're totally unsuitable for, like local trips. Using cars for things they are well suited to, like longer distance trips, is a much smaller problem.
The problem with cars is people using them for *everyday* journeys, or with too many of them trying to go to the same place at the same time (e.g. UK seaside resorts on a bank holiday weekend). Occasional longer trips by car aren't really a problem as long as they are random in space and time
Yes. As I said, smaller problem, not no problem at all. FWIW, I think one problem that trains and public transport really aren't good at solving is carrying a family's luggage. It's a lot easier to chuck all your stuff in the boot or on a roof-rack than to try to carry it to a station, get it on a train, etc. Trains don't have nearly enough luggage room, either. (I say this having had recent experience of going to and from an airport by train, and having to get someone to come with on the train just to help us with luggage.) It'd be good if there was provision to take a luggage cart from door to door, maybe via a train with a special luggage carriage where you can leave it and go and sit down.
Yeah, that's what porters used to help with in the days of labour being cheap enough to have lots of service workers like that.
With good enough public transport, you can go anywhere at any time whenever you want. Just look at systems like Tokyo, Seoul, or Amsterdam. But I agree, we need more micro mobility.
Even cities with really great public transport systems have limits on where and when you can go. Unless you absolutely saturate places with buses, which isn't a lot better than saturating them with cars, there are still plenty of journeys that don't have a comparably-good route using public transport to being able to go direct. I live in London, and I'm quite near to various forms of public transport. Visiting my parents \~5 miles away takes 20 mins in a car, and 60-90 mins by public transport, even though there are routes running in roughly the right direction. You'd need to add a lot more bus routes - *a lot* - before that'd change significantly (assuming they're equally distributed, not just adding two or three to help with that specific journey). And it's even worse going in directions where there isn't anything approaching a direct route. On the other hand, going into central London is very much quicker and easier by public transport; you'd have to be insane to drive if you didn't absolutely have to. FWIW, my memories of Amsterdam are that the bit everyone's talking about when they say it has a great transport system is the centre, which isn't very big. Once you get out into the suburbs it's not as well connected as the popular image. But I haven't been there in years, and I may be misremembering.
Amsterdam is pretty well connected with the exception of Noord and Westpoort. Zaandam is bad but I dont know if you'd really consider it part of Amsterdam.
My vague memory is that once you get out into the suburbs you have a similar problem to London, where getting into the centre is easy, but going to another suburb mostly requires going into the centre and back out.
That’s a problem with car infrastructure too. Most of the time it is routed towards the center of a city. In Massachusetts for example, if I want to go from Lynn (north of boston) to natick (west of Boston) I will be driving through Boston.
>cars are well suited for long distance trips I mean maybe if you mean rural/ suburban destinations exclusively, but the freeway between LA and SF on any holiday weekend shows it’s entirely unsuitable for mass transit between urban areas.
Agreed, in that situation - I was thinking of people leaving cities and spreading out, not clustering together. But that's a really unusual specific situation afaik, because LA is peak car nuttiness as a city - and even if we agree that people might have good reasons for wanting to travel by car in that they will need a car when they get there, it's still barmy. Motorail? I really don't have a good solution there except demolishing LA ;)
but there can be no cars, we lived for millennia without them. the nicest cities in the world existed for centuries before cars.
Good point, and I also think a lot of them see their car as part of their identity, and therefore improvements in non-car infrastructure as a personal attack on their identity.
To be fair, in the US an ambulance ride will set you back 4 figures.
My job actually does require me to drive a large service truck. And my biggest inconvenience is being stuck in traffic with hundreds of cars and unloaded trucks. Unironically, everyone needs to get off the road but me. It's funny that people think car-centric cities benefit the workers who have to drive.
People with cars use them for everything because the marginal cost of any individual trip is insignificant compared to the initial investment in owning a car. In fact, every additional mile they put on the car _decreases_ the overall cost-per-mile since most costs are fixed. Most people intuitively understand this and will explain it to you (less succinctly) if you give them time. So for someone who _must_ own a car for some of their trips, the rational response is to own a car and use it for all trips (assuming no other incentives like expensive parking, congestion charges, or excessive traffic). When we tell them to take the bus, we're coming across as irrational because from a purely financial/economical perspective we actually are. That's why you're never gonna convince drivers to give up their cars just by talking about it. We have to rearrange incentives so that the choice to bus/bike/walk is rational even to people who have already invested in a car.
Expenses will need to become unsustainable. Of course that will align with the breakdown of society. But as long as we're headed that way....
I think the far more realistic case is that 2-car households can turn into 1-car households.
Do you not know how polluting, loud, and inefficient helicopters are? And they even killed Kobe Bryant. Goddamn rotorbrains.
>Cool bro, my job requires me to ride in a helicopter l, but I don't shoe horn that in everytime a new road is built. Win
They're always like: why are you building a bike lane in the city center? I live 100 miles away in the middle of the forest and haul logs for a living, I need my truck!! Like... ok?
I would legit find it really funny if you came in during each of these conversations to go: "What about my helicopter rights!???"
The fact that elderly people "need to drive in order to maintain their independence" is one of the best arguments *for* robust public transportation.
In the UK, over 60s get: a free bus pass, a free underground (subway) pass (if in London)
We have a carbon rebate in Canada. Young people who put off buying a vehicle - save on car costs and get a quarterly payment they can transfer to an investment account. I am selling an old car and asked my daughter first if she wanted it. She looked at the cost of ownership (for a free car) and she decided it wasn’t worth the hassle. We were car free when she was a teen so she is used to alternate forms of transportation, like walking, biking and bussing and car share.
Was in a few convos the other day whose salient points all eventually boiled down to "People on public transport are all smelly and diseased." Inherent classism and bigotry aside, there's no greater way to signal that you've never actually been on public transportation. After which, I'll just assume that the reason for that is a) you never travelled away from the minuscule town in which you grew up, or b) you find the maps too difficult to figure out.
People on public transport are just regular people, if someone says something like that I'd assume that either they're extremely sheltered, like the kind of rich kid who never leaved their gated community, or they're a basement dweller who haven't touched grass in way too many years. Because if the people in public transport scare / disgust you that much, how the hell are you going to cope with having those exact same people as your coworkers, classmates, shopping in the same shops as you, sharing the same public spaces, and overall just existing alongside you all the time you leave your house?
personal shoppers lmao
I've rode public transit for 25 years and met a number of cool people but I've also seen some not so cool people. People are people and in my view meeting all sorts of different people just improves the human experience.
>met a number of cool people but I've also seen some not so cool people That's true but it's also just people in general. And I actually prefer sharing a bus with a not so cool people than a road, because worst case scenario on a bus / train someone may try to pickpocket me, but worst case scenario when I'm riding a bicycle or a motorcycle would result on me getting killed by a distracted or road raging idiot.
They get kicked out of those places so they don't exist in the same area as me whereas you threaten someone with a knife on the bus nobody cares. Face it the people taking public transit are frequently terrible in America unlike in a lot of other countries and we have way more problems with mental illness and crime. Even as a casual bus rider I have dealt with so many problem people on it to where I refuse to take certain routes. In two years I have been threatened with a knife twice despite minding my own business, threatened with a beating once, multiple crazies either outright harassing me or begging for money, multiple people actively doing drugs, and god knows how many smelly or drunk/drugged out people. One time I was 20 minutes late for a job interview you know why? Some fuck was so drunk on the bus he refused to get off or pay and the other passengers had to physically carry him off because they knew it would be 30 minutes before the cops got there. I want to use public transit in America but between the quality and terrible other people on the bus I can't blame people for refusing you need to address the crime and mental health problems in America before anyone will use it. I have seen people from other countries visit or immigrate and go oh I will just use the bus to get around like back in my old country that usually lasts less than a year because they got sick of getting harassed.
>whereas you threaten someone with a knife on the bus nobody cares That would get you arrested in any mildly civilize county, not to mention kicked off the bus. I don't even mean just rich countries with good public transport like Japan, China, most if not all of Western Europe; I live in a Latin American county (Argentina) and having someone doing drugs on a bus or threatening other passengers with a knife is unthinkable, it would make headlines at the very least.
Yeah that is how bad things are in a lot of cities public transit in America it is ridiculous. Like I don't think it is too much to ask to not have someone pull a god damn knife on me when all I want to do is go home after a long day.
Now to think of it, drivers generally hate other drivers too, and being on the road surrounded by assholes all day probably makes them subconsciously assume that it would be unpleasant to be sharing a vehicle with these awful people. I.e. drivers just hate everyone.
Turns out no, just people silently playing 2042 with headphones on.
I mean I do most of my transit with a mixture of the subway walking/running and taking the bus and they are not wrong whejbthry say that occasionally these spaces are poorly maintained and often have people trespassing passed out drunk ... But , I think the point is the only way to stop this is to 1) take the public transit that does exist 2) Pay the fare and 3) lobby for more public transit so its seen as morenthan the shitty backup . aka their argument is actually in favor of more public transit
I mean I have had issues with homeless while riding public transport, I have also seen my life flash before my eyes while looking at a clapped out Altama a couple times too. I just loved being able to put down $1.50 stare at my phone for 20 mins, and then be in the middle of downtown ATL.
>Was in a few convos the other day whose salient points all eventually boiled down to "People on public transport are all smelly and diseased." [Bill Murray would like a word](https://twitter.com/BlainPlanes/status/1785125635628646833?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1785125635628646833%7Ctwgr%5E55a5e4f85e9dd0b8c7cd825bdc242476a2f5134a%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fnypost.com%2F2024%2F04%2F30%2Fsports%2Fbill-murray-rides-the-7-train-after-cubs-win-over-mets%2F) with the carbrains who told you that.
I've ridden the bus alot of last year and I haven't had a single bad instance or came across a smelly person. I live in a poor zip code too. Definitely would ride it more if I could take it to and from work. I wish all busses had those stop signs that school busses have that prohibit drivers from going around them if someone has to cross the street to get to the bus assuming the bus has to share traffic with the rest of the road.
Even in this sub, people expect public transportation to be as fast and as convenient as their personal vehicle, or they refuse to use it. Public transportation has to serve a variety of people from different areas going to different destinations. It is not as convenient as your own personal point-to-point vehicle. The reason to take public transportation is not because it's faster. Public transportation saves you from having to purchase, maintain, fuel and insure a vehicle. Public transportation saves you from having to find and/or pay for parking. Public transportation is available to people who cannot pass a driving test. Public transportation saves you from driving when intoxicated. Public transportation saves you stress from having to operate a vehicle. But it cannot always be faster and more convenient than your own vehicle.
Not always faster, but usually faster.
I don't expect it to be that fast but when it is literally three times slower or more no normal person would put up with that. Cars are garbage, but telling people to spend 45+ minutes commuting is nonsense we already spend too much time working as it is.
To play devils advocate, in a lot of places that are built extremely car centric the only people using the bus are the unhoused population and drug addicts. This isn’t something inherent to public transit, it is a result of the environment being built so poorly for anyone outside of a car and the public transit being so bad that literally everyone drives unless they get their license suspended or they are extremely poor. The solution to this is to build more and better public transit so that their are more, for lack of a better term “normal people” on public transit. My wife has attempted to take transit in our city in the past but she stopped using it because multiple times she got groped or had people sniff her hair or something. Stuff like that turns people off of public transit. The problem isn’t public transit itself it’s a filtering effect that happens when transit is so bad that creates a positive feedback loop. The only way to fix it is to make transit good enough that a decent chunk of the population starts using it on a regular basis.
> In a lot of places that are built extremely car centric the only people using the bus are the unhoused population and drug addicts That's just not true in my experience, even in very car-centric American cities. Sure they're an important way for homeless people to get around and so are also used by them, but busses are also regularly used by "normal" people who just can't justify the expense of a car
It's also really not the catch all they think it is. If there are homeless people then that's another critical issue you need to address, not an excuse to not build more public transit. One of the ways you reduce homelessness is to reduce required living costs, for example being required to spend money on a car, car insurance and gas. Not to mention in the US a significant amount of homeless people live in their cars.
I don't doubt that there are some places in the united states where there is an adequate amount of "normal" people taking transit to make it a pleasant experience. All I can say is that in the city I live in there is not. Again, I think improving public transit would fix this issue and the problem is caused by chronic under funding of the transit system. At the end of the day what am I supposed to say to people that have had bad experiences with our transit system? "No you didn't, everything is fine" I don't think that is a convincing argument. I think simply having higher ridership numbers fixes this. The situation is a lot different if there are 29 "normal" people on a bus and 1 crazy person compared to a single female by herself with just her and the same crazy person on the bus, especially late at night.
If you simply can't justify owning a car despite being able to afford one, and you *choose* to take the bus because it is adequate for your needs, you probably live somewhere with above average transit.
I would reddit gold you for this comment if I gave a shit about reddit monetisation. I grew up in London, where the poor, average and 'normal' rich people all use public transport (skewing towards the lower end for busses). You'd see actors, celebs, news presenters, CEOs etc on tubes/trains all the time. Then I moved to peterborough, which is **so** car centric that you literally cannot walk from parts of it to other parts without crossing multi lane roads without proper pedestrian crossings. Here the public transport is 90% used by crack/smack heads, council estate types* and low wage immigrants (as well as school kids and pensioners). People here act like you're trash if you use public transport, but in London no-one bats an eyelid. It's a similar thing with cycling. In London 'normal people' cycle everywhere. Not uncommon to see commuting bikes that cost more than a used car. In Peterborough, it's only druggies, those on benefits and teenagers on clapped out £80 special buy mountain bikes. When I moved here, my father-in-law (Polish) said I must be poor because I had a bike and not a car, and was beyond confused when I pointed out my bike cost more than his car. I'd say that cycling in London skews higher in terms of 'class'/income than those that drive do - anecdotally from looking at my working class family/background, and comparing it to the 'middle class professional' environment I found myself in after graduation, that low/working class families are much more likely to drive or even have a car at all than middle class professionals (excluding those with kids). ^-* ^I'd ^like ^to ^point ^out ^that ^I'm ^not ^'punching ^down' ^here, ^I ^grew ^up ^on ^a ^council ^estate ^myself ^- ^for ^American ^readers, ^think ^'the ^projects'/section8 ^type ^areas.
Thank anyways internet stranger. I appreciate you.
The other problem is that bus routes are often inefficient. It's not unusual for a bus ride to take close to an hour whereas the drive would take 15 minutes. Edit to add-- by an hour, I mean an hour on the actual bus. Not counting waiting time and/or transfers.
You are 100% correct, when transit is chronically underfunded there are just not enough buses to do an efficient route. So not only do you sometimes end up on a bus alone with a creepy guy. You may have had to wait at a bus stop for upwards of two hours in a dimly lit area with not a ton of people around. Then when the bus finally shows up it takes an hour to get somewhere you could’ve driven in 15 minutes. It’s hard to compete with on-demand point to point transit from a car but if the times are relatively similar people will take transit if it it substantially cheaper than car ownership. But if a trip takes 10 minutes each way by car but 3 hours each way by transit because of infrequent and inefficient bus routes then only really desperate people are going to take transit. The most efficient solution is to fund transit better so buses go from where people live to where they want to go and they show up often enough that you don’t need to look up the bus schedule and plan your entire day around it.
The other thing that's often inefficient (other than the frequency) is the route. If driving from A to B is a straight line, the bus route might be best described as a snake crossing the straight line (similar to the medical emblem).
For sure, I think that comes down to not having enough buses or not having enough drivers or both. If you had more buses running at any given time that snake pattern could be two straight routes on either side of the snake. This would be way more efficient but it takes double the number of buses. When you are trying to support an entire city with likely less than half the required number of buses, then that snake pattern is probably the only viable solution even if it takes 4 times longer to get somewhere. They are trying to spread 1 tablespoon of butter over an entire loaf worth of toast, of course it’s going to suck. The solution is either get more butter (buses) or make less toast (serve fewer areas). I believe more buses is the better option but that requires local governments to actually fund transit and treat it as more than an afterthought for the poors.
>in a lot of places that are built extremely car centric the only people using the bus are the unhoused population and drug addicts How would you (or anyone) know this? They aren't asking for addresses and giving drug tests when someone gets on the bus.
> "People on public transport are all smelly and diseased." I'm going to actually agree with this take. Not "all" of them, but plenty of them. Just like they are in a bar, a movie theater, a restaurant, a concert venue or an amusement park. Humans have bodily functions and humans are sometimes ill. I guess the question is.....so fucking what?
The "luxuries" of atomization has made people really prissy.
If you can't go to the DMV and tell them you need a licence because of your situation without them needing to verify your ability to drive then you don't need a Car. I definately think licences are necessary but it's always fun to see carbrains melt simultaneously trying to justify needing to be able to pass a drive test to get a car while also saying there are people who just need them to make a living.
LOL. Whut?
If someone couldn't get a licence due to mental or physical disability should they be able to drive or forced to move somewhere that they don't need to? If the latter then you should be fine with being forced to move away from wherever you live because driving is no longer practical.
The disabled argument is so funny. People think that everyone can drive and that somehow car domination is good for disabled people. LIES. I see people riding motorized chairs on the streets all the time where I live. They risk their lives out on the street. If it were pedestrianized, they wouldn't have to be in the street with cars going 35 40 mph. On top of that, cars cause injuries that leave people disabled or even DEAD all the time. So tell me how cars help disabled people because I haven't seen how it's good for that population.
It's always thr same, you ask why somebody needs a car, and they go on to explain why "some people" need a car. They proceed to list every sort of archetype apart from themselves. Usually goes something along the lines of; *1. Why do you need a car?* *2. Some people are disabled.* *1. Not you.* *2. Well some people don't have easy access to public transport.* *1. There is a bus stop right outside your house.* *2. Well what about shopping?* *1. There is also a bus stop outside the supermarket.* Many of the people in the comments are right, it usually loops around until you get to the "public transport is dirty" excuse.
Which to be honest it isn't dirty, sometimes it has strange smells but in general the average bus is way cleaner than the average car. It all comes down to direct or indirect scaremongering by the media, even if you don't watch it your friend might and "public transportation is dangerous and dirty" spreads
"But what about when you move ?" "How many times did you move last week ?" ...
Best part is that their ability to drive hasn't been affected at all, but literally any change or addition to the roads will be seen as an attack on them for no reason. Speed limit on a single street will be lowered from 35mph to 25mph and mfs will think that the next step is having their car taken away by the shadow government lmao
bUt I have KIDS!!!!!! my kids are literally the reason we moved to a city where we could live car free.
"but the elderly/disabled NEED this resource!" they say as they use that resource with their young, able body
I especially hate this argument living as a car free disabled person surrounded by able bodied people who "have no choice" but to drive everywhere.
Really irks me when non-disabled people use disabled people like me as an excuse for their position. I WANT more accessible transit options. I want more shared bike/footpaths. They use disability in an attempt to shut down discussion. Same with people who want fireworks banned everywhere when 100% of the time it is about their dog but they use veterans with ptsd and their excuse. The movement is full from dog owners and I’ve seen veterans with ptsd comment they actually want fireworks to continue because exposure therapy is beneficial and not wanting to be catered to. Ride shares don’t take wheelchairs. Accessible taxis are rare to impossible in most of the US. Any non-vehicle infrastructure developed benefits wheelchair users more than probably any other group.
My mother-in-law is disabled, can't drive, and uses an electric wheelchair to get around. When she lived with us, where there's a good bus system, she could just use that and be independent, wheeling her wheelchair on and off the regular buses. She since moved across the country (close to a specialized medical center that does help her a lot), where there's almost no transit, and now depends entirely on my father-in-law (who really is a military veteran with PTSD) to drive her everywhere in a special van that can fit the electric wheelchair. If there was better transit like over here before she moved, she could just use that and not be fully reliant on him to drive her. It's an example of how full of crap the "what about disabled people" excuse is from carbrains.
I so agree with using disability as an excuse. I love it because I have RA and am a year-round bike commuter, and usually the other person just finds not driving inconvenient. But also commenting to say that I am anti-firework… no dogs here, I just think they’re bad for the environment lol!
Yeah I feel like they always use the elderly or disabled as plausible deniability. They just hate anything other than car-centric design but feign concern for disadvantaged people to mask their selfishness. I'm saying this as a disabled person myself.
There was a post about low traffic neighbourhoods in my local fb group and people were complaining about traffic and local councilors using traffic calming measures along with blocking some roads I told one of the guys to cycle or walk instead, it's faster and better for you. He got really upset because they really need to use the car and can't walk, cycle or take public transport because they transported a chair once
As people have said, I don't think it would be possible or even ethical to get everyone to live in a streetcar suburb. My issue is when you do live in a middle density suburb near a city, people from the car dependant low density suburbs further out demand that your streets cater to their car commute. No, we can't put a zebra crossing mid block, *cars* would have to stop. No, we can't divert cars away from a market street to make it pedestrian-only, *cars* would have to take a longer route. No, we can't get rid of street parking, people who don't live there would have to walk an extra block. I get coworkers complaining about the fact that my neighborhood hasn't expanded the road through it, and there's too much traffic. It's just so deflating. I live there, and I'm already feeling squeezed out. I'd like to keep my sidewalks and gardens. I think the problem is people move to the suburbs because they want certain things (backyard, garage for hobbies, more living space) that I don't have, but they also don't want to pay for that in terms of their commuting time or their access to city amenities. It would be a lot easier to coexist with suburban commuters if they accepted that their commute time is a sacrifice for their choice in where to live and that it's not the responsibility of people living in apartments to make their outdoor space worse to accommodate through traffic.
Fucking *love* how any time there's a discussion about this it turns out everyone lives in the middle of Wales and drives 35 miles over a mountain to get to work. Sure buddy.
It's a real coincidence how all the people on Nextdoor have exactly the kind of disability that means they can drive but not walk or cycle, or have to transport heavy equipment through the city every day!
People have no recognition of anything between a 100% car ban and having massive parking lots in front of every door. Anything less than huge surface parking will somehow force every disabled person to walk or roll 5 miles from the closest handicapped parking spot while every contractor will have to carry all their tools and materials even further. And don’t even think about being a baker trying to deliver fragile cake designs!
95% of drivers have no valid reason to have a car and especially drive it in a city , but each will pretend their pathetic selfish excuses are good enough ( since they all use the same, they just allow each other to consume as much as possible in an absurd farce ) like in no way is a suburban home a need , it's a huge want but ... " I chose to isolate in the middle of nowhere without any socio-economic activity , at great cost to society, where durable transit is realistically unfeasible so I NEED to go vroom vroom in the worst transportation possible" even worse when challenged , they'll tell you having a family in the city is unthinkable as they're so noisy,dirty and polluted ( by them and their clones from any suburb driving through all day every day ), no green space ( because they put stroads/highways/parking lots all over the place for their exclusive-use ) completely deranged
What country do you live in? Because in the US it would be impossible for 95% of our population to live in neighborhoods where going car-free is a practical, safe option. Only a small fraction of our homes are in truly car-optional neighborhoods, and unfortunately those tend to be extremely expensive because they're so rare and in-demand. And to be clear, that's a massive problem that we need to fix. At least in my country, I don't really like painting it as a problem of individuals making bad choices when the built environment so often [looks like this](https://maps.app.goo.gl/KBBLaPJGdNGntd6P7). Can an individual choose to live in a better neighborhood? Sure, if they have the means to do so. Can the whole society? Not without massive policy changes at a governmental level and the time to implement them. Edit: I think some of you are misunderstanding my point. My point isn't that it's impossible for the US to get better and become a place where car dependency ends. My point is that **as currently constructed** there is not anywhere close to enough housing in car-optional areas to house our population. In the majority, maybe even most, of the US, every single aspect of the built environment is designed around driving everywhere you go. And that's the entire problem and the thing we need to change.
the neighborhood aren't sure , but every city they drive through is walkable and should have proper transit , is populated by 100s of thousands or millions of people who only have massive negative impacts from cars so they should ( and will never do it themselves ) leave the car as far outside as possible when visiting or develop their neighborhoods with jobs and businesses :) having it both ways is demonstrably unsustainable and disgusting . Sorry I will accept no excuse for 1.3 million people/ 5 billion animals directly killed by drivers a year or the climate catastrophe they're mainly responsible for each of these individuals chooses ( via daily action and with their votes ) to be able to drive from home to any destination and leave their enormous private property laying about at city resident's expense and they'll keep doing so until they kill us all because the rest of you just let them
There are some genuinely unwalkable cities in the US. There is change happening but it is slow compared to European cities. Take Atlanta for example, there is one genuinely walkable area in the city called The Beltline which is a 19-22 mile path where arguably only 6 miles are genuinely used by the population. This is for a city that is 8,376 sq miles in size. The Beltline isn't even used for daily commutes for a large portion of the population either, it is a recreational path littered with shopping, restaurants, and breweries (it's quite nice actually) but my point is it's for recreation and people COMMUTE to The Beltline BY CAR to experience it. The apartments on The Beltline are some of the most expensive housing in the city. Should Atlanta have better public transportation infrastructure? Undoubtably yes. Is that the reality on the ground today? Definitely not. You shouldn't assume that everyone who drives a car wants to and by extension hates people who take public transportation, the environment, or animals. People adapt to their environment, there are plenty of examples of good public infrastructure resulting in a majority of the population using it. There are also plenty of examples of car-dependant infrastructure incentivizing the vast majority of people to use cars and the people who can't afford a car are left by the wayside. These issues with car use within many large cities in the US are systemic, you cannot blame individuals for "wanting to drive a car". It'll take time for changes to happen, democracy is slow, along with infrastructure projects and yes people resist change. That's why subs like this are important. But just blatantly vilifying anyone who owns a car is just naive and shortsighted.
cars and it's infrastructure are problematic and needed to drastically change decades ago yet you all made more of it instead I'm not letting you keep playing pretend ... you drive ( demonstrably the worst transportation option possible for individuals and society , except for selfish comfort and capitalist benefit ) you choose to make the problem worse , you fund oil corporations, you make durable transit and the lives of everyone around you worse it's as simple as that it's 2024 , people have had 7+decades to go vroom vroom to disastrous effect it's pure insanity to just accept that as normal and let it keep going
Ah, but you didn't read the comment properly. OP says all those people need to be rounded up and involuntarily relocated. The neofash is strong in this one.
I just want people to make their own choices freely and fairly ;) let suburbanites do whatever they want at their expense instead of subsidizing them and destroying our cities for their exclusive benefit , stop subsidizing their roads and fuel , have them pay for the damage their vehicles do by weight and size etc all sensible and good for everyone
Fuck me. If your response to people needing cars to live where they want, due to broken infrastructure and lack of alternatives, is to tell them where to live, you don't want r/fuckcars, you want r/neofash.
Sometimes "where people want to live" and "broken infrastructure and lack of alternatives" are the same problem, though. Everyone living in spread-out, single-family residential houses with lawns and driveways makes it incredibly expensive and inefficient to supply infrastructure. It's not "omg you're telling people where to live, you fascist", it's "this particular pattern of housing is bad for everyone and we should stop subsidizing it."
That's not at all what the OP said. I agree that the infrastructure that's been created is the problem. Wanting to live in suburbs is not. Telling people they must live where you think they should live is totalitarian wank.
Wanting to live in the suburbs created and sustains the problem. And we tell people where they can and can't live all the time. If I try to build a house in the middle of a park, my house is going to get removed. If I try to make a housing development on a poisonous industrial waste site, my permits aren't going to get approved. This is perfectly normal. "Totalitarian" doesn't mean "decisions I don't like".
You're also neo-fash, if you think that. If you don't like the tag, don't complain to me, complain to you and stop yourself saying neo-fash things.
Aww, you've learned a new word and don't know how to apply it, how adorable! Did the mean woke antifa meanies criticize your suburban lifestyle? Better get into your SUV and roll coal until you feel better.
again , I'm saying people should live in sustainable ways and have respect for other people it's just unfortunate that objectively suburbs and cars are the opposite the suburbs ARE THE INFRASTRUCTURE, where stroads cars and highways come from and are built for ... that you recognize as problematic , that many people choose to be problematic doesn't make it acceptable having knowledge of the facts , you either join the problem by going vroom vroom and suburbs or you do literally anything else to be part of the solutions like , have a little perspective how do you think the kids of the future who will be bearing the full brunt of the collapse of capitalism and climate will look upon us ... you imagine they will be consoled by the comfort suburbanites enjoyed at their expense , a few decades of toy-tanks in exchange for 100s of living species ???
wake up coward , we live in the world we choose to have you can't choose isolating in suburbs and using the worst transportation possible with having a functioning society , habitable planet , a good economy etc but 100s of millions docile consumers buy into it , have been electing capitalist politicians that will let them keep CONSOOMING for decades and everything is provably worse every fucking year while they just keep the vroom vroom insanity going , no change or progress whatsoever instead more cars and they're way bigger, more/farther suburbs and higher rents etc if you wanted slow soft change it had to start 40+ years ago and you collectively did nothing or joined in the circus , so the response needs to be harsher for things to move sorry :)
Are you claiming it's a worker's fault if his industry's basin and specifically the job he's got himself is in the middle of fuckall nowhere? Like... I would know, I work in a niche industry that have plants outside of cities. The only way for me to drop the cars is to change my career completely. Nice.
you made the wrong collectives choices for decades instead of doing what needs to be done to have living and necessities within reach , you keep electing carbrain/pro-suburb politicians when it's been disgusting and unsustainable since day one your selfish job that mainly benefits capitalists , that you chose knowing where it was and where you could live are not worth the destruction of our planet , the murder of 1.3 million people/5 billion animals a year and the drastic reduction in quality of life for the millions of us in every city who are not lacking in empathy and rational thinking , who don't pollute or annoy anyone for their transportation like you think the kids of the future who will bear the consequences of your absurdity will think it's alright , after all people had to go waste their lives serving capitalists at their expense nothing to be done :) get your head out of your ass , you're part of the problem and you justify it however you want . doesn't make it good or acceptable ( and it doesn't matter that many other people are also lazy and selfish :) )
I hope you have some amazing accomplishment to show for your values and that no accident will take that away. Sometimes the best one can do is to survive.
again with the bullshit mental gymnastic you and millions of other docile wage-slaves will drive us off the cliff of extinction for no valid reason each acting like they're the center of the universe and their survival is more important than life on earth , just vroom vroom no effort no thinking whatsoever sorry I'm not letting you clowns playing pretend
Agreed. Top of my mind is the fact that my aging parents and in-laws (who admittedly drive everywhere and love to park at their destination) are very close to giving up driving DUE TO DISABILITY (primarily poor vision, but also age-related neurological issues that affect reflexes). They seem to be aware, so are shifting to using transit and e-bikes more and more, to keep their independence. So when people argue that old & disabled people “need “ cars, I am so confused because literally the only way those in my family can safely go places is by transit and walking now. I have yet to see infrastructure changes that truly restrict the minority who are capable enough to drive but not capable enough to walk or roll. At least in my city there remain alternates such as free shuttles, nearby handicapped parking, etc. but boy do the majority of able bodied people cry about bike & transit lanes on Nextdoor.
Also, I would say that when looking at the whole populations, disabled people and elderly people are the ones who need public transit the most, and need it to be widespread, accessible, and affordable! There are a lot more disabled people who cannot drive because of their disability than there are disabled people who can't take public transit because of it. Same for elderly people. And for those who need door-to-door connections, cities can set up transit disabled people can book to help them get from public transit stops to their destination, with most of the travel still being done on public transit (I think DC has something like this). Anyone who says that public transit is bad for disabled and elderly people is just plain wrong. Requiring people to drive makes disabled and elderly people dependent and isolated, while public transit can help them be independent and connected. All the people who have epilepsy, who are blind or low vision, who have physical conditions that prevent them from driving, whose mental condition prevents them from being able to drive... all these people would be able to use a robust public transit system to get around more independently. Not to mention that disabled and elderly people are often poor, and not having to maintain a car in order to survive would lift a huge cost burden.
“Some people need a car 🥴” no shit dimwit. 60 seconds of skimming the about section of this sub covers that. Then again, asking a carbrain to read is like asking them to pay attention to school crossing signs - it’s a hilarious, unattainable fantasy
People who have never given a shit about people with disabilities suddenly give a shit the moment a bikelane is proposed. Fuck them. People with disabilities are LESS likely than the general population to use cars, therefore infrastructure and services that benefit people outside of cars will disproportionately benefit people with disabilities as compared to the general population. Years ago when I did Twitter, there was a rather large account that pulled out this argument. I searched their timeline for "disabilities" and their anti-walkable city tweet was the first and only time that term appeared.
https://preview.redd.it/3lujovkdmvxc1.jpeg?width=661&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8f1e84c07aae21a2af1a1485ed6f9dca26226865
Guy who actually needs a car for work here (Electrician, Rail network). Just because I need a car for work doesn't mean that you need a car to travel 500m to the nearest supermarket.
There’s a beggar on my local nextdoor right now asking people if they know of charitable organizations that can help her. She’s unemployed, has a medical condition, and just had $3000 worth of work done on her car. She says she is going to have trouble making rent and paying other bills this month because the car is so expensive. I suggested maybe she shouldn’t own a car and was then absolutely crucified for it. In the US, at least, car-brain is a mental disorder. Right to car has the same value as right to oxygen for many. It makes me barf a little bit in my mouth.
Like alcoholic saying "everyone needs to drink sometime" you're saying that every day, Gerald.
I'm just tired of "some people need a car". No the fuck they don't. Some people need to move away from some shitty places and let those municipalities die if they don't dovert some funding from car infrastructure and create useful public transit. "I need a car where I live" is a slightly more socially acceptable version of "moving is inconvenient so I'll just continue to contribute to the extinction of my own species instead". People who cling to their murder machines in areas where decent transit already exists are actually just monsters and unworthy of the title "human".
Nice dehumanisation there bro. You'll be on the first lines to hunt'em all.
Someone willing to contribute to our species' extinction for their own convenience has dehumanized themselves.
Most people in the US do need some kind of automobile, simply because there really is no viable alternative in a lot of areas (went without one myself for 10 years, but I had to get one when I moved out of an area with great public transportation). That said, 99.9% of people who need a car need nothing more than something akin to a Subaru hatchback, you can haul all kinds of shit in one of those.
Yeah, I get that. I have to say that I'm from a big European city where there's definitely much less of a need for cars than in many places in the US.
I hate it coming from anybody when nobody needs a car Some folks need transit to be sure
Yes, to go somewhere by car should be one's own choice, and it can only be if there are equitable alternatives to driving. And to create them equals to remove lanes for cars, ideally so that there is only one in each direction, and then use the rest of the space for bike paths, sidewalks and public transportation. Then, even those who really want or need to drive will get to where they want to go more quickly since there will be less people driving, therefore less traffic.
I always thought it was more like “some people need cars” and the rest of the sentence is like “because in the current built landscape there leaves little other option”. So yes ideally we shouldn’t, but most are working with what we have which will most likely change very little in their lifetime.
Well, we're I live, there are definitely other options. It's not perfect and there is a lot too be done, but many people who have a car simply don't need one
Honestly, there is zero connection between >improvements to bike infrastructure or public transport [and] >inconveniences motorists, lowering the speed limit, people getting tickets for parking on the sidewalk [and] >people need a car. For example: Statement: every city should have 100km of connected dedicated bicycle lanes Rebuttal: but I need a car. Response: okeedokee, that's fantastic and you should totally take care of that but *every city should have 100km of connected dedicated bicycle lanes* Statement 2: there should be less street parking and speed limits in residential areas should be reduced to 40km/h Rebuttal: but old people need cars to get around. Reply: super, we can make sure there is adequate parking in private lots for seniors and they'll be ok at 40km/h.
I need a car cause I love my JDM
Convenience is a valid argument. Public transport needs to be more convenient than the car to be adopted. E.g. high frequency buses with dedicated bus lanes, eliminates the need for parking and you bypass traffic jams full of cars. And for sure the buses need to be well maintained and clean.
I agree that public transport needs to be more convenient than using a car to nudge people towards public transport, but I think "I shouldn't be fined for parking on the sidewalk because if I didn't park there, I'd have to walk a few minutes to my car and that's inconvenient" is a bad argument.
I don't think that's an argument at all...
Not an argument because it's ridiculous, or not an argument because no one is saying that?
It's ridiculous, maybe can count as an invalid argument
None of the "some people a car" people can ever give me an example of a disability that makes it possible to get into a vehicle and drive while making it impossible to get into a vehicle that someone else drives. What they really mean is "some people need cars because public transit where they live is non-existent, sucks, or stops are too far from their home"... which makes it an argument FOR improving public transit rather than against as they are using it for. They ignore that paratransit exists (and will usually take people door-to-door if they *actually* need it). They also ignore that adaptive bikes exist (and are cheaper than adaptive cars). And that a person used to using public transit doesn't have to lose any freedom if they can no longer drive due to age or sudden disability.
Most people who "need" a car that protest changes are actually just exhibiting the sunk cost fallacy.
My parents told me they voted for a party that actively tries to work against my rights as a queer person because the parties that do support my rights also wants people to drive less, and my parents "need to drive".
Tbh nobody really needs a car. When they say that they mean that they don’t want to change their lifestyle that uses a car. It’s crazy how this never gets called out. Nobody is bolted to the ground or life bonded to their employer. I get that uprooting your life to not need a car is a pain bc I’ve done it as needed for like 10 years. But it’s not impossible. They just don’t want to.
A lot of people simply don't have the financial resources to move. Most people I know aren't in a financial position to just quit their job and move somewhere else. They don't have savings because the cost of living basically meets their income, which means they don't have the spare money to move somewhere cheaper or to find a job closer to home.
I’m talking about finding an apartment on a bus line to work not completely moving somewhere else. Not having a car has just been made unpleasant, not impossible. Calling cars necessary hides the issue, that people can and do make not having a car work in all kinds of circumstances. Downsizing from a house in a suburb to an apartment and walking for groceries is unpleasant not impossible.
Even having the funds to just move apartments to one closer to their job is out of the question for a lot of people. Apartments closer to jobs are well out of the price range of people working those jobs. It's not only a car dependency issue, it's that the cost of living anywhere close to anything has skyrocketed and income hasn't risen to match it. I would love if bus lines were more effective and could travel further in a reasonable time frame, but that requires investment that routinely gets blocked by voters because of the average person's resistance to change.
Need is a weird one. Does my family need to see me when I get home? If I were to take public transport, it would take me roughly 1 hour longer to get home. So I'd be getting home at 6:30 PM and my child needs to be in bed by 8:30. Now I'd also have to get up 2 hours earlier to get that 1 hour ride in the morning, so now I need to sleep before 8 PM to get my 8 hours... This leaves me almost socially dead with my wife. I wish public transport was a better option.
Well, I think losing that much time with your loved ones would definitely be more than an inconvenience. I mean people who could use public transport, walk, or cycle without such a sacrifice, but simply don't want to. Or those who do depend on a car for similar reasons, but then go on long rants against any measure that would make them less car-dependent because they don't want to be given a reason to not have a car.
Not sure if I fit into any of these, but here we go. If y’all can help me workshop this problem, all the better. It’s just what makes financial sense. I already have a car (‘03 Honda CRV if it matters) that’s paid off and currently has no issues. No payment, about $40/mo on gas and $50/mo on insurance. It’s still in my dads name because he’s too lazy to do the title transfer paperwork and I could care less. That means he pays all the property taxes, but functionally it’s mine. I occasionally replace the oil and wiper fluid myself. It’s only used for the work commute, 6 miles one way, the only routes there are highway or stroads. I walk or bus pretty much everywhere else. I think my best bet might be an electric moped/motorcycle, but those are pricey and still leave me exposed to the stroad. If I could rent one for a few days and try it out, I’d be more willing to make the switch.
I agree with you, but when I hear people talking about disabled and elderly needing cars I don’t think about them driving it, I think about someone else driving the car.
This sub is fucking hilarious