The conservatives where I live shit blood absolutely any time any changes are made to roads to make them even slightly more pedestrian and bus/bike friendly. Preventing accidents/deaths and generally having a more usable, inviting environment for anyone that isn’t a car is unacceptable if it adds even a second to their commute. Go live on the fucking highway if you like it so much.
It's funny because adding more non-car options tends to make using a car more pleasant. But conservatives aren't known for being smart, correct, or good at long term thinking.
Yeah. My city changed a one way street that runs 30 blocks headed away from downtown from a two lane multiple stop sign traffic hazard to a single lane with plenty of parking, a bike lane, turn lanes for busy intersections, and highly visible intersections with proper pedestrian connections. Traffic would get backed up before, but now it goes pretty much straight through at the same time of day with barely any sloowing down. Sure, all the cars are in the same lane, but prevoiusly they were just spread out between two lanes and slowing down way more often to merge and turn more slowly.
Haven't heard of any new plans to do the same with comparable streets despite being a roaring success. People look at a single lane and don't understand it can be faster for everyone than two when done right.
Tax rebates for massive luxury electric SUVs but you're on your own if you want to buy an e-bike worth less than the total tax rebate for an EV. Most places won't even build infrastructure for anything other than cars. My city has roads with no sidewalks that go straight to downtown and some newly built suicide bike gutters along a major stroad.
Some states have programs, I know Cali has a program for ebikes https://www.ebikeincentives.org/
Though I will admit most of Cali is not bikeable (at least socal imo, norcal is better)
Here's a list from what I could find online on it. https://tstebike.com/blogs/new/unlock-savings-2025-u-s-state-e-bike-tax-credits-and-rebates
Controversial take (for this community): Electric personal vehicles were the catalyst for the electrification of commercial vehicles. So while it doesn't address the problem of car-centric infrastructure, EVs have had a net positive impact on the environment by converting fleet vehicles to less polluting options as well as taking diesel trucks off the road.
Plus, even if you reduce the number of cars by 50% you still need to replace the other 50% on the road so the EV industry needs to grow
Always important to remember in this debate: electrification of transport is not just about carbon and climate. It's about public health, not to mention public sanity.
The filthy noisy combustion engine was never compatible with dense cities, which is where most people live these days. Anyone who has been to one of the few places in the world where urban transport has been completely electrified will testify to the difference it makes to be free of the internal combustion engine. It's night and day.
Let's not lose sight of the wood for the trees.
Let’s not lose sight of the wood for the trees.
I agree.
I wish my city would ban the loud sport cars.
And motorbikes.
True dat. I remember how quick they were to start criticizing remote work. Saying how it isn't fair to the office building owners when people work from home. Less traffic & congestion was probably one of the few upsides of the pandemic to me.
As long as a majority of Americans live in suburban areas, car dependency will continue.
If suburbs were developed to be people-centric, you really wouldn't need a car for 99% of your daily tasks. Most trips by car are very short, and can very easily be replaced by non-car modes of transportation.
The argument I usually hear from car-brains is that we have to pRoTeCt RuRaL cAr DrIvErs.
Unless you’re transporting anything of a decent size which most people do frequently.
Define “decent size” and define “frequently”.
It's incredibly rare to see pickup trucks in the suburbs or city hauling stuff. Sure, there's that one guy who collects metal scraps once a week, but that's about it. He's using his truck to make a living, not to take his kid to school up the road.
Unless you’re moving furniture or have a physical disability it’s not really an issue. It’s also easy to use Uber/Lyft/etc and book a large vehicle on the occasions you do actually need it.
I guess if you’re buying a ton of pet food/litter or drinks regularly it could be a pain, but if an area is actually designed well you won’t be carrying it very long. And if you plan ahead and have one of those little luggage/shopping carts you don’t have to carry it at all.
Source: have lived for the past 15+ years without a car.
That's not even true. E-bikes solve the low density suburb problem. You just need to actually build out appropriate bike lanes and trails. Suburban neighborhoods aren't unfixable.
As long as new housing is built in suburbs due to zoning, people will continue to live there.
All of the housing in my city that is near downtown or near business districts is either abandoned, run down, or gets converted into businesses.
thanks, henry. your horrible ideas still echo throughout history to this day. elon's taking notes.
bUt oUr pRoFit MaRGiNs!
why not both
The money wasted in electric car subsidies is much better spent on mass transit and cycling and pedestrianization initiatives, all of which move far more people at much less cost per person. Electric cars are being posited as the solution (as opposed to drastically improved mass transit) because that's the only way auto companies can stay relevant and maintain their supremacy
Also we should be looking to reduce car use because car infrastructure is incredibly expensive and environmentally destructive.
Electric cars still need ashphault, make tire dust, require salted roads. Roads will still have surface water run off contaminated and artificially heated damaging natural water ways. Roads will need to be repaved more often due to EVs weighing more.
By the end of day, we are barely getting ahead environmentally with EVs if at all. Some EVs like an electric hummer will generate more carbon through their lifecycle (production, use, and disposal) than an ICE compact car.
So what do you suggest? No cars allowed at all? Even in European countries with strong public transportation cars are still useful and allowed (except in crowded city areas). It's hard to imagine life out in the boonies without access to a car...
I think we should pursue better public transportation primarily, but I also think efforts to make electric vehicles better are an important piece of the puzzle to transporting ourselves sustainably.
I claimed reduce car use, not no cars at all. If we cut car trips in half in favor of walking, biking, or transit thats a huge improvement. Car dependancy has other issues as well with land use causing sprawl and strip malls, which often sit abandoned and a new development is built further down the road. I think reducing car use and improving density and livability of cities goes hand in hand.
Yup. Even if we don't reduce the number of cars, driving them less often is a massive benefit.
I don't even know about that. EVs are prohibitively expensive for most people, and will continue to be for a while, if the idea is to have electric monster trucks on our streets.
Now, unless the future of EVs in North America include those tiny, affordable EV cars, then they might save themselves. Good luck with that! LOL
This is an argument of scarcity. That scarcity (of money, in this case) is artificial, and created by those who won the last election to make the scarcity even more extreme.
The fact is we need both, and to get both we have to change ideas and to change ideas we need to get people onboard and a good way to get people onboard with clean renewable energy in the US is cars. It’s a gigantic fucking place and trains and bikes aren’t practical in some of it.
Not practical to have zero cars. Residential areas aren’t set up for it. How you going to get your shopping in with 2 kids when it’s pissing of rain like it is 70% of the time here in Scotland.
Priority should be public transport with cheap public autonomous taxis that can drive 24/7 and unclutter the streets.
I don't think you'll find anyone with a lick of sense in here that's advocating for zero cars -- just that the way the system is currently set up prioritizes cars above everything else when it ought to be the other way around -- cars ought to be the very last resort instead of the first option most people go for. Taxis absolutely have their uses, and yes they should be cheap, but not so abundant as to divert people from using mass transit like buses or trams
You have a very city centric view. And yes this meme does hint at advocating for 0 cars. This is not the only reply you've gotten about this. And I know you guys love to tout the whole "most people live in cities now" while also ignoring the fact that it's just barely half and half of humans in general don't even live in the west. Those in Asian countries have completely different lives and routines to what you would all expect. Most of which do have access to public transit and they still have need of individual transport.
Funny you should mention Asian countries, considering both I and the author of the tweet in the screenshot live in an Asian country. We do use individual transport -- but it's not cars, it's usually motorbikes or scooters. The "meme" (actually a serious opinion from someone who studies urbanism and transport for a living) is aimed at manufacturers and governments (like mine) who are pushing electric cars that most people can't afford (and that people in rural areas definitely can't afford) to the exclusion of public transit, which practically everyone can afford.
And you should know those motorbikes and scooters are FAR AND AWAY WORSE than cars. Can everyone afford public transit:
https://www.self.inc/info/cost-per-mile-in-america/
Depends on who's setting the price.
I've just told you I live in Asia and you've sent a link about public transport in America.
Very good USdefaultism, sir.
A two hour commute in an electric car is still two hours in crushing, soul destroying traffic. People ask me why I take a train and a freeway bus for my two days on campus, and I ask them why not? My drive is three minutes from my house to the train.
But in suburban Southern California, public transit is "for freaks and losers." That was deliberate marketing.
I agree on mass transit. Highly recommend Adam Something's youtube video on why self driving cars will increase traffic and waste. Its not a solution for cities large or small. Rural communities may see benefits but they pose weirder problems.
Because at least in the US the airline and car industries hand shake to stop commuter trains.
The west coast regions also have an additional problem where the slopes will need massive amounts of tunnels for high speed rail and are complicated by a lot active geologic zones. So while its the best solution (trains) its expensive but Japan managed to do it. Its not going to be cheap or quick to build the needed infrastructure. Add in most people are heavily invested in car infrastructure when they buy a car. So there's a public will barrier here built out of billions of garages, cars, and driveways sold.
People also pose "flying cars" etc as a solution. Piloting air vehicles requires air traffic controllers and communicating on an extreme level in addition to pilot licenses and security problems. Its not also not a serious answer to transportation.
Also for flying cars, when a non-flying car breaks down suddenly, it can be a dangerous situation but you just need to avoid hitting anything until your momentum is lost and generally have options (brakes might lose power assist but could work, if they don't there's still emergency brakes, and if those also fail, there's engine braking if you have transmission control, or steering back and fourth to lose momentum via turning friction, and once you're going slow enough, even colliding with something stationary can help).
With flying cars, maybe it can glide, assuming it even works like that and isn't more of a helicopter or just using some kind of thrusters. Plus, if you're falling to your death anyways, you might not have the presence of mind to try to optimize what you do hit with what control you do have to minimize damage to others. Hell, the safety feature might even be ejecting and leaving it to fall wherever, while hoping none of the other flying cars hit you or your parachute, or fly close enough to mess with the airflow in a way where the parachute might fail.
And that's not even going into how much more energy it takes to fly vs roll.
Flying cars don't make practical sense. And where they do, we already have helicopters.
Need to pick your battles tbh.
If you tell every driver to give up driving, the planet ain't getting saved.
Need to pick your battles tbh.
Trump admin cuts $60M for bullet train. Can railway from Dallas to Houston still happen?
The high-speed rail project intended to connect Houston and Dallas in just 90 minutes.
We literally cannot build trains in this country because we self-sabotage every opportunity.
Houston is getting $4B to redo I-45 but can't be spared $60M on state mandated planning for an already established rail route.
This isn't a question of abolishing cars. It's a question of abolishing trains which we appear dead set on doing.
I'm not disagreeing with the post, but mass transit is completely non-existent where I live. We have so far to go.
Don't know where you live, but to put this into perspective: it's the same situation here and I live in The Netherlands (outside of the major cities). Even in a rich, flat country, the size of a post stamp, we cannot make mass transit work outside of larger cities. I agree that we need mass transit, but it's only one solution for the mobility puzzle. Cars also fit in there as a puzzle piece, especially in areas where the population density is lower.
So from my perspective, no, cars aren't just for the rich.
Cars also fit in there as a puzzle piece, especially in areas where the population density is lower.
When there's 1 farm per 5 km maybe. In 1920, you could get from Savanah to Boston just by taking trains and streetcars; every neighborhood was served by atleast a tram.
The USSR found it worthwhile to build rail lines to remote settlements, without stops, a few times a day a guy would just drive a 2 train locomotive and stop if he saw anybody.
In some rural parts of Japan, you have lines it's just 1 railroad, and every 20 miles is an unmanned station where it splits into 2 for the trains to pass, for like 10 stations. So you have 200 miles worth of suburbs being served by 40-50 workers running 20 3 car trains, that arrive every 30 minutes or so. The unmanned stations tend to have tons of bikes, they probably have buses too.
Average cost of owning a car per day is 20USD or so. A single railroad line that allows just 1000 people to not pay for a car does not cost 20,000 USD a day to operate. This is not including the cost of road building and maintenance. But even if it did, cheap transit is a public good; transit isn't supposed to be revenue neutral. Roads aren't revenue neutral.
Sure, you can get from Savannah--a major city--to Boston--also a major city just by taking trains. That's a great case for public transport.
But as someone else pointed out, can you get from one side of Savannah to the other efficiently, at off-peak times? I lived in Chicago for over a decade, and while the transit system isn't great, it's not bad. I lived in the Austin neighborhood (if you know Chicago, you know that's not a great area); if I went to see a concert at downtown without driving, I had to walk about a mile and a half to get home, because that was the closest train stop to my home, and busses in my area stopped running at 11p.
Where I live now, even if trains ran to my town (and they technically do, but it's only freight), I would have to travel 15 miles to get to the train. And that 15 miles from where I live to the train is also about 1500' of elevation loss. That's pretty great for riding a bike there, and really, really sucks for getting home. Especially if I have groceries of any kind.
I agree that we should have better public transit, and I agree that the cost is a net public good. But that doesn't solve all transportation needs. It may take a large bite out of them, but it doesn't fix all of them.
busses in my area stopped running at 11p.
Continuing to run some transit late at night is one of the few things NYC and Chicago actually do better than most cities.
Even Tokyo runs some of its last trains before midnight. Some stations don't get their first trains until 6 am. Missing the last train because of an event that let out at 2AM or 11 and it took awhile to get to the station isn't that uncommon. It's not terrible to walk 5km in a more walkable city. But also that's where ebike and scooter shares, and even taxis fill the gap. You don't need to destroy the city with parking lots and wide roads to support that.
I think that most of the trains in Chicago run late at night, although far, far less frequently. I remember taking the green line with my bike late at night, drunk, and riding the mile or so north to my home through some moderately shitty neighborhoods (a bit west of Garfield Park, if that means anything to you). I lived in in a pretty rough area; there were definitely no taxis waiting for fares near the train stations (or anywhere!), and there weren't any e-bike or scooters in that area either. It was just rough getting around the Austin neighborhood in Chicago late at night without a car.
Yeah no I'm not saying Chicago is ideal, only that does 1 better than most cities in that it runs trains late at night. Most cities have ebikes/scooters, and an app that you can use to schedule an uber or taxi.
Being able to take your bike on the subway during non-peak hours is also nice; a lot of the world they don't let you do that, except on a few special trains.
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