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submitted 2 months ago by Chronicon@hexbear.net to c/urbanism@hexbear.net

semi serious question.

I stumbled onto my local metro area's reddit while trying to look up some historical photos and stared into the abyss for a few mins.

I resisted the urge to leave libreddit and make an account just to reply but, I ran into this post that is basically complaining about having a car in one of the most central neighborhoods in the city, and asking for advice on getting off street parking (in reality, anything that isn't an overpriced surface lot that offers no protection is going to be quite a hike away from their apartment, there's no way this will work out).

They claim they work in X first ring suburb where "there are no buses" and that's why they have to have this car, which is hilarious because they could one seat ride to half of that suburb in under half an hour from a bus that leaves from their front door. the other half it'd be a 2 seat ride but still under 45 mins, and obviously way cheaper than a car. There are also plenty of neighborhoods they could move to that would have less breakins and cheap off street parking, but they seem convinced that's not the case.

But I digress.

The fellow reddit-logoers in there commiserating about how horribly expensive off street parking is (in a neighborhood that is basically in downtown) got me thinking... If we can't get city governments to do shit about on street parking and massively unsafe roads, is allowing the street to be so unappealing to park on that people have to actually pay for their giant waste of precious urban land, a viable option to improve things?

this expectation that you should be able to just leave your 2 ton death box lying around in public anywhere for any length of time and nobody will so much as touch it doesn't apply to any other kind of property (just look at bike theft), and it really fucks with people when you violate that. I feel like that's a usable weapon, in a way, against gentrification and car dependency and traffic violence.

Were kia boys doing praxis?

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[-] Frank@hexbear.net 27 points 2 months ago

I don't think terrorizing random working people is a productive way to promote public transit.

[-] FlakesBongler@hexbear.net 16 points 2 months ago

Yeah, the average person isn't going to be like "Guess I'll take the bus/train/bike" they're going to be pissed

Seems somewhat counterintuitive

[-] Chronicon@hexbear.net 2 points 2 months ago

In the aggregate, rather than the acute example of a hypothetical person doing it as a visible political protest, I think it does push people away from cars (or towards white flight 2.0 depending on the persons background) but you're right, its ofc not actually a productive strategy, just a byproduct of poverty that impacts those who least deserve it the hardest.

this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2024
20 points (95.5% liked)

traingang

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