I lived across the street from a department store, a grocery, some pizza places, a "smoke" shop, video game stores, and everything else I could want on a normal day. It was amazing. I walked everywhere except to work. I miss living there. The main downside was that it was in Florida.
Totalled my car three years ago. Never bothered buying a new one. I save a lot of money and accepting my faith when relying on public transport has given me so much mental freedom. I take the train to work and the last part of the route is by shared bikes. Love it.
I don't live in a car-free city, but I wish I would. Fuck cars and especially fuck the people in them. I live in a pedestrian zone, but connected to the main artery through the city. You would think that labeling something as a pedestrian zone would reduce the amount of cars going through, but no, it's just a second main street. Might as well take down the ped zone sign, it gets ignored anyway, so why waste money making one?
I'm almost there.. The area I live in basically all my needs are within 3 miles
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I wouldn’t mind being able to give up my car and truck. But since I’m out in rural parts. It wouldn’t workout too well when it came to other needs.
My 2 cents: Living in a climate that gets all the seasons, a car makes things much easier in the winter for numerous reasons. Also, as someone that lives with chronic pain issues, walking or biking places on a daily is quite difficult for me, again, having a car resolves this.
Good quality public transit can solve those issues as well. We should have a variety of options available for a variety of people who need them.
I understand you may not have lived carefree but here's two places with extreme weather that do fine without cars (provided people invest the minimum amount to establish public transport):
Winter (Norway, way below freezing): https://youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU
Summer (Taiwan, 36C+): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dBk7lq8o1Y
Ah yes, winter! I live in a wintery place (Quebec) and cars in winter need very much care to work properly. They need plowed and salted streets or they get stuck or can't go uphill. If that level of care was the same for pedestrians and cyclists, it would be much easier to move around without a car.
Also, you may need a car because of chronic pain but surely not everyone driving a car needs one for chronic pain? And wouldn't it be nicer for people that really need a car if there were fewer cars around?
I'm in my early 40ies and lived all those winters without a car and I still think it's silly to say they are "adapted" or "working well" in winter. Every winter there are multi car collisions/pile-ups on highways. They slip and slide easily. Multiple times in a year cars can't climb the little hill in front of my place. It takes even more space to park them as there are snowbanks everywhere. Sometimes they get covered in ice.
I really can't see the appeal of a car in winter.
Yeah, I hate the term "car-free". That said, even for someone who primarily uses a car, advocating for bike lanes and public transit makes sense, as the fewer people there are taking up road space and parking, the easier it is for you to drive / park.
I think the term "car free" is a misnomer, more like "car as a non primary form of transport for most people most of the time" is more accurate but doesn't roll off the tongue as well.
There are a lot of people with mobility issues in such cities that are serviced in different ways, a lot of times with specially licensed cars etc.
Fuck Cars
This community exists as a sister community/copycat community to the r/fuckcars subreddit.
This community exists for the following reasons:
- to raise awareness around the dangers, inefficiencies and injustice that can come from car dependence.
- to allow a place to discuss and promote more healthy transport methods and ways of living.
You can find the Matrix chat room for this community here.
Rules
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Be nice to each other. Being aggressive or inflammatory towards other users will get you banned. Name calling or obvious trolling falls under that. Hate cars, hate the system, but not people. While some drivers definitely deserve some hate, most of them didn't choose car-centric life out of free will.
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No bigotry or hate. Racism, transphobia, misogyny, ableism, homophobia, chauvinism, fat-shaming, body-shaming, stigmatization of people experiencing homeless or substance users, etc. are not tolerated. Don't use slurs. You can laugh at someone's fragile masculinity without associating it with their body. The correlation between car-culture and body weight is not an excuse for fat-shaming.
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Stay on-topic. Submissions should be on-topic to the externalities of car culture in urban development and communities globally. Posting about alternatives to cars and car culture is fine. Don't post literal car fucking.
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Please report posts and comments that violate our rules.