Right is possible if economy is local. Left is actual real life because of capitalism needs bigger markets in in small areas for maximing profits.
You can’t have bigger markets in smaller areas with cars because the cars take up so much space. Public transport gives access while still allowing for density, which provides a much larger market. The only ones losing out are the auto makers and oil companies.
Trains
Don’t bother mate, the people in this community don’t live in reality.
Hello. I used to live in Bremen which is an economy hub in Germany. It’s pretty much image #3
They’re a solution, not the solution indeed.
Sorry, chief. We don’t do nuanced thought in this community.
They are a patch, not a solution.
I live in GA outside of Atlanta and rent is already tough. I’ve been to cities with not exactly amazing but serviceable public transportation (various parts of greater NYC and Chicago) and loved them. I’ve tried to use busses elsewhere, though it often meant 3 hours wasted to go to work, with similar time wasted after (hourly buss schedules and multiple transfers).
I have an electric car now, work from home, and try to avoid having to drive much, but there isn’t much more I can afford to do atm. An bike would be nice but even that’ll take money I’m still recovering, and some places I go to even just a couple times a month has no public transportation. I’d love if it did, but I have to use EV for now.
I think when most people decry EVs, we’re not talking about individual EV owners but the system which forces basically everyone to move around by personal vehicle. Sure, they’ll be the occasional person who says, “I bike 28km to and from work at a very physical job where I often work overtime. I have to share the road with traffic. I don’t know why everyone can’t commute by bike,” (this was the gist of a comment I read on reddit years ago). However, most people understand that changes can’t just be personal responsibility.
With the information we have about your life, it sounds like you made a reasonable decision. If you can continue to be mindful about the decisions you make and advocate for a better world when you can, I think you’re doing a great job!
When we lived in L.A., we were near a train station. My wife sometimes took the train to work and sometimes drove. Even in L.A. traffic, it took her half the time to get to work by car because of how far away we lived from where she worked. It really sucked, but that was the reality. She had to get up at 4:30 am to take the train and 6 am to drive. She did carpool, which is better than driving alone, but it’s hard to convince people to get away from cars if you have to make sacrifices to your day like that.
I’d call them less a solution, more an attempt at harm reduction.
And the only things they’ll properly resolve are tailpipe emissions and idling noise. At least one of which is of no concern when dealing with the externalities of car traffic.
If you really want to solve the environmental impact of transportation, you minimise the need for transportation. Put homes and workplaces close together, offer mass alternatives for the pairs where you really do need motorised mobility solutions, and minimise the number of situations where it’s more convenient to take a car. Ban on-street parking and heavily tax off-street parking. Need to park your car in the city? Hope you can afford to pay an arm and a leg. Oh, you can’t? Looks the Park & Ride at the train station two towns over is the nearest alternative. Don’t worry though, the trains go six times an hour and a day ticket is, like, four quid max.
[…] Put homes and work locations close together […]
The best hope for that to have marginal improvement is a move towards remote work, mostly feaseable for white collar activities.
Anything else is constantly pushed outside and away from residential areas.
I know a few stupid examples of very well planned and thought out industrial parks and long time industrial sites forced to vacate because residential were built 2 or 3km away and residents did not enjoy the movement going back and forward (not through the residential areas, mind that) of trucks and other machines or the sounds coming from a factory when the conditions were just right to carry it over the distance. Needless to say companies simply moved away or closed down activity and the previously complaining residential areas became high unemployment areas.
It’s the same absurd reasoning behind people building houses in the middle of nowhere and then demanding power, water and communications connections.
They’ve done this to our city center. Last time I visited (half a year ago) most of the shops and restaurants had gone out of business and they’re contemplating turning the café/mall area into apartments.
Meanwhile, during the same period of time, a huge car mall has started sprawling on the city edge. It’s a huge shame really. Used to be a very pleasant area to visit and walk around.
Nowadays it’s either take the bus (30+ minutes once every half hour), the bike (30 minutes if the weather is ok and you work up a sweat) or hope there’s parking and pay exorbitant rates (10 minutes).
I used to commute to work via public transit, until they put fees on the commuter parking by the train station as well. Slightly more expensive to drive all the way, but way faster (1/2 the time).
So… yeah. The “fuck cars” attitude of my municipality turned me from someone who travels by foot, bike, bus, train and car into someone who travels almost exclusively by car. I need a car, the rest is optional.
…yeah, i tried the public transit thing for awhile and not only spent at least as much money but also increased my commute by four to six times: totally unsustainable, mostly due to anti-infrastructure politics…
…wherever urban real estate is driven by speculative capitalism, walkable neighborhoods are a luxury reserved for the upper class…
Quid: you’re British. Great.
You’re smaller in area than Texas. It’s a little easier for you to stay close to everything, you’re never more than 70 miles away from the sea.
Hello, I’m Albertan. Stop saying this. Our governments maintain roads in between these cities every year, there is no reason they couldn’t have been train lines instead. Roads are far more expensive than many realize.
Once upon a time, all cities were connected by train, and we ripped it all up to build roads instead. Sure, it’s going to cost money to build these up again – that’s what happens when we make a mistake, we have to pay for it in one way or another. But connecting smaller towns and cities is not the herculean impossible task that people seem to want to pretend it is.
There ARE major urban areas in North America. People are not evenly spread out across the landmass equally. Connecting these first is obviously the goal, because that will take care of 70% of the problem already. And always remember not to make perfect the enemy of good - even if we stopped there we’d be in infinitely better shape than we were before.
We’ve done a ton of that. The Acela is great, I’ve ridden it a bunch. But that kind of thing doesn’t scale as efficiently as you would hope. It can serve corridors of people, but not huge continents of hundreds of millions all that well. There are to many places to be.
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How odd, russia has plenty of walkable cities in the largest country on earth.
Look mate, if you’re going to shove the “tHe stATeS arE ToO bIG, thus wE cANNot SOlvE The transIt ProbleM” rhetoric on us, please find another place to wallow in your lack of trains while assuming car industry rhetoric as undeniable fact.
Also, your claim has been debunked and reclarified so often that I’m not going to begin to explain just how wrong you are.
You guys are all idiots. A bunch of Europeans lucked into an infrastructure that works with twice the people in half the space, and you act like it was an intentional and smarter design decision in anticipation of a climate crisis. You shipped your most insane people off your continent to become Americans, and their shitty Calvinism has made everything that has always been terrible about Northern Europe even worse.
Now you want to act like anyone who thinks what you propose isn’t exactly easy (or democratic) is some kind of corporate fascist. Fuck off, the lot of you.
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Solution to what though? Emissions are reduced but not eliminated: when accounting for greenhouse gases emitted during production, EVs start outperforming traditional cars only after 5+ years of use (depending on the type of car). And other factors like tyre dust and road maintenance (due to EVs’ higher weight) or resources needed to replace/recycle old batteries are not even included in that balance.
EVs might still be a net positive when compared with traditional cars, but both pale in comparison to public transport and infrastructure oriented towards bikes and pedestrians.
That’s really only because most of our electricity is still produced through fossil fuels. As we move to renewables, that equation will shift rapidly toward net positive much before 5 years. And that’s not accounting for any technological advances (like sodium ion batteries) that happen in that time.
The 5 year figure is from a German study and is based on the German energy mix (which is indeed quite dirty). So yeah, that number will hopefully decrease. But even with that, the “up-front” emissions in EV production are a major issue that is tough to solve and rarely made transparent by EV manufacturers.
What’s the upfront emission of EV production that makes it that much of a detriment compared to ICE production?
The main source is battery production and related to the mining and refinement of their raw materials (source, source). The exact emissions are hard to quantify. That being said, the lifetime emissions of battery EVs are still significantly lower, so it’s still a net benefit. For a bigger picture, you can check the references here and here.
US energy is 40% renewable already. Solar is the fastest growing energy segment.
In my county, our electricity is 2/3 sourced from hydropower, so an EV has significant impact on emissions relative to an ICE car.
I don’t think they’re even a solution. They’re just another scam like hydrogen fuel cells were. They exist to keep people from pushing for the real change we actually need… Just like the decade we lost because people bought the hydrogen fuel cell grift last time.
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Oh man, waiting an hour or so for a bus in -30℃ weather is great. Then the bus is inevitably late because it’s Edmonton (where public transit doesn’t seem to get public funding) and you get to enjoy the great outdoors for another thirty minutes. I’m surprised I still have my toes…
I’m so glad my parents gave me their old truck so I don’t really have to deal with that shit any more.
The problem with electric cars is that they’re a distraction. They make people think they’re part of the solution when they’re only partly addressing one of the many problems cars cause. I’m not against people buying them assuming that they’re in a position where they need a new car, but advocating for electric cars as a solution is wrong. I read the OP like this, not how you read it.
I agree this kind of post may play in favour of ICE manufacturers and oil companies but I disagree with the comparison you make between EVs and tobacco patches. EVs are produced and sold in order to replace ICEs in the exact same segment. They do not impact peoples lives significantly and will not change anything in the way cities and activities work now. The example you give is the epitome of a work/life organization which was only made possible by the massification of individual motorized transportation, with all the negative externalities listed in the OP. Yes individual cars are going to be needed for many reasons in the future. But we need to work collectively to make them less convenient and less needed in everyday life.
oh buzz off with your weird essay filled with jabs and fallacies and bad faith. actually I just reread it and I have to ask: what the fuck is wrong with you? you’re acting like a white guy who hears two black people talking about racism and leaps in to say “stop calling me racist!” you think this post is calling you out? what the actual fuck is wrong with you?
NO ONE IS SAYING YOU ARE PERSONALLY MORALLY WRONG FOR DRIVING A CAR TODAY IN 2024
that’s the whole fucking gist of this entire guy’s essay, folks. he thinks criticizing EVs is a personal attack on him and people who don’t currently live in walkable cities
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Ah yes, Canada. Well-known the world over as a ‘shithole country.’
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So the entire metric for ‘shithole’ to you is based on how many people ride electrified trains? Really? Nothing about, say, their economy or their standard of living or their record on human rights or anything like that?
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No? Where did I say this?
You implied it when you suggested, to my reply that Canada might not be a shithole country, that it was due to the whole train thing.
Right, because they’re doing so well on that front…
https://globalnews.ca/news/7920118/indigenous-women-sterilization-senate-report/
And the country with the flawless human rights record is what? Iceland because there’s no one to oppress since everyone’s related to everyone else? Great. The rest of 200-some other countries are shitholes by that measure. Again, not the best metric.
Let’s talk about your country now. Where do you live? Will you even volunteer that information?
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The problem is people got the idea that they need a 3 ton truck to do grocery shopping
Sure maybe a mega SUV as a daily driver is not right for everyone, but I just can’t live without the extra leg room and riot protection!
Riot control vehicle lpt :If you just fill the water cannon tank to half full instead of topping up you save quite a lot over time due to reduced litre/km consumption
Emission laws made big trucks easier to produce than small trucks in the US, I miss the days of the short bed pickup. Still like my 98 taco and use it for hauling hay.
The idea that you even need a car for grocery shopping is insane.
My supermarket does this: if you go shopping with public transport, then you can ask the cashier to have someone deliver the just purchased groceries to your house for 5 euro
Not really, if you’re doing your weekly shop all in one go (especially for a family), it can make sense that your weekly shop can be more than you can carry and thus you need something to help you carry it. I wouldn’t want to lug 4-5 bags of shopping onto a bus where I’m going to piss someone off because I placed them on the seat, nor do I want to try to balance all that on the handlebars of a bike where a single fuckup or pothole I can’t see will lose me lots of money in shopping.
I don’t personally do those sorts of large shops, but people are busy and literally schedule this in their week so it’s not insane.
Or hey, maybe more people could shop online? With well planned routes it could be more efficient than lots of people all travelling to one place.
If you live in a dense area with more local shops, you’ll probably be doing more frequent, smaller shops throughout the week.
What about one of those carts you can hook up to your bike? I asked around once and heard it can carry 50 kg.
I used to have this handcart and it could easily carry enough groceries for 3 people for 1 week. We’d put stuff directly inside at the counter and then empty it in the kitchen, then fold it up for storage. It was maybe 100 euros? And of course you could also use it for picnics or shopping for other things.
For heavy stuff we’d use delivery or a lasttaxi. Basically a taxi for carrying heavier things.
I heard a good saying the other day: “Electric cars are a solution for the car industry.” Give me walkable cities please
I live in Scandinavia, in one of these walkable cities. Everyone has a car. Why? Because relying on public transport or walking/biking everywhere is not practical. It’s just reality.
That’s fair enough. I also own a car, but I try to use alternative means of transport (bus, bike, walk, skateboard) whenever possible. It’s the prioritisation of cars over all other modes of transport where I have the issue. My city is riddled with car filled streets criss-crossing all over. There’s a plan to take one of the most shop focused streets and make it walkable. It would mean that I would be able to get to work almost the whole way on it. I hope it goes through
I’m not disagreeing with you or most people here for being annoyed by everything being build around car usage. I just don’t see it realistically change. You’d have to rebuild most cities from the ground up and invest ungodly amounts of money into several modes of public transport in every city. It just won’t happen.
I’ve had to use public transport to get to a job I loved in a neighbouring city, due to not having a car at that point. Where a drive with the car would have taken me about 20 minutes one way, the bus+train combo I was forced to use was 1,5 hours including waiting times. It was so draining that I quit that job after 6 months.
If this is the choice you need to make, people will take that car every time because you can’t rely on jobs being available within 20 minutes of walking or public transport, most cities aren’t build to offer jobs+housing+shopping within a small radius for all the people living there.
The part about going to your job is totally valid. Some jobs can be worked remotely or partly remotely now, but that doesn’t apply to all professions, so that is something to keep in mind.
In terms of not being able to realistically change the current cities, many of the best walkable cities prioritized cars first and then changed. It took decades, but they eventually achieved it.
There’s this presentation I found after doing some research on the 15-minute cities conspiracy theory, and it was a really interesting talk about how towns and cities can be changed into slower, more accessible ones. It’s an hour long but there’s a 5 minute segment where it discusses cases where cities have changed from car-based to a more walkable one, in this case Amsterdam and Pontevedra (in Spain).
I recommend checking it out. Here’s a link with the timestamp of the start of the section about those cities:
Dr Rodney Tolley: Fast Speed, Slow Cities
In the section before this one, he discusses the cost of other transport modes versus cars. Building and maintaining infrastructure for cars is waaaaay more expensive than for other methods, so cost isn’t an issue. I’ve included the slide below.
Disagree on inefficient.
Internal combustion engines in standard small size convert 19.65-22.1% of their energy from thermal to kinetic.
The ratio of electron throughput from battery to electric motor can be as LOW as 88% but hovers between 92-98% efficiency.
Even if you had a fuel cell in the back, running electric motors quintuples (5×) the standard energy efficiency owing to the principle of energy quality type preservation in conversion (High to High vs Low to High):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_transformation
So 1 electric car = 4 less carbon liquid fuelled cars worth of pollution.
What you’re actually looking for is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
Jevon’s Paradox states that improved efficiency of something will only increase its use, and in this case, electric cars will in fact, correlate to car use, and increased mineral demands.
This is a problem you cannot solve endemic to humanity.
I think the point is that compared to public transport when transporting a large number of people, they are inefficient.
The “when transporting a large number of people” is quite a caveat. Sure ok high saturation of public transport / walkable cities is probably achievable with high population density, but in rural / regional areas it’s just not possible.
A reasonable comment in this community? Get out!
I think you missed the meaning of inefficency on this matter…
While it is undeniable that electric cars have a better supply-to-engine energy efficency than combustion cars, you can understand that they are equiparated in the meme as “equally bad” if you think outside of the box labelled “rubber wheels on high friction asphalt transporting usually a single individual”.
Compare that with a tram or a train, transporting multiple passengers with the same electric engine but also steel-on-steel friction on the wheels and the difference between an ICE and EV vehicle becomes a mere approximation error; god I can do the math for you if you want, but I bet even a disel bus with a lot of passengers has a better efficency/passenger ratio than an EV.
So 1 electric car = 4 less carbon liquid fuelled cars worth of pollution.
Also I think this is a bit misleading: if I buy an EV this won’t magically destroy 4 (where is this number from?) already existing carbon liquid cars, it merely means you avoided adding 1 other ICE car to the total.
box labelled “rubber wheels on high friction asphalt transporting usually a single individual”.
so, a box I keep my bike in? :D
When is it efficient to carry several tons of steel with you to pick up eggs and milk?
I mean, Jevon’s Paradox works because the increased efficiency leads to decreased costs. It’s unclear if that’s going to be the case for electric cars because the hardware needed to get to that high efficiency is so expensive, and mostly made cost-effective by government assistance (I.e. eletric cars here in the UK do not pay road tax).
I’m also not sure if lowered costs would massively change the number of drivers (at least in the developed world) in the EU there’s one car for every two people. We’re not going to see that become 5 cars for every two people just because the efficiency increases, demand is too inelastic.
Like, I get your overall point, but the whiskey to wine comparison doesn’t quite work lol.
For starters, you’d have to drink a LOT more wine comparatively, which doesn’t translate when going from ICE to electric.
It does, because the batteries for electric cars have a reliance on rare earth metals.
Lol the downvotes are hilarious. We will not solve climate change with electric cars. Public transit in walkable communities with niche uses for cars and trucks are the only way forward.
Hopefully there is a solution to that problem right around the corner.
As seen in the Wikipedia article, sodium ion batteries also require rare earth metal anodes, or toxic materials like mercury which is also bad. Better than lithium ion, but still generally not great. The best option would be aluminum air batteries, which should be easily accessible and are extremely recyclable
The battery tech is starting to move away from rare earth, with LFP not using cobalt and sodium-ion not using lithium. And in any case, emissions are by far our most pressing problem compared to issues with rare earth extraction.
For you who live in the cities maybe. Personal vehicles will never be something rural people can function without.
perhaps you’d be interested in the fact that I grew up in a very rural area. The nearest city was Rochester, MN, roughly 30 minutes away if you were going 70 in the 55 on US 52. I agree that rural areas will need cars to go from their houses to towns and cities, but I’ve thought extensively about public transit in rural areas, and I think it’s far easier than folks think.
This is why people hate liberals, and why liberals often migrate over to conservatism: no matter how right you are, there’s always someone happy to crap on you for not being right enough.
Don’t shit on EVs for merely being one of many solutions that all need to be engaged with. It’s not like without EVs, so many people would be rushing to areas of greater density and riding public transit, so your message is not helpful in achieving what you want, and actively angers your allies.
Ah yes conservatism, the famous side of rational thinking and anti-bias thoughts, such as avoiding the perfect solution bias
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This is a lot like this Bors comic https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/8/8/1786532/-Cartoon-You-made-me-become-a-Nazi
Do honest people really migrate to “climate change is fake and queer people are a threat” because someone was mean to them online? Probably not often.
Plenty of people said if Bernie wasn’t the nominee, they’d vote Trump. Puzzle that one.
I think both sides are lacking nuance here. If you shit on people getting electric vehicles or just thinking of getting one because that’s not far enough: fuck you. But also, for people that just switched or are thinking of getting one but then see something like this and slam into reverse and say “I’m gonna support ICE cars till the day I die to spite those overly hostile woke liberals”: fuck you too.
People should be able to take the information in a more nuanced way, and should stop swinging from extreme to extreme which has led to the current fucked state of politics
Oh no, some liberals were being mean to me on the internet. Guess I’ll just vote against my own interests to spite them…
This is how a lot of people vote. Maybe they aren’t converted right then and there, but it builds up over time. Humans aren’t rational man
I don’t doubt that that’s the case, but I’m just pointing out (humorously) the absurdity of someone who is purportedly a principled individual who cares about things like climate change, civil/human rights, equality, bodily autonomy and most importantly democracy changing to the side that is openly against all of those things because people can be harsh and nasty on the internet sometimes.
Like, if someone really was so flimsy with their morals that they could bend so easily, did they ever really care in the first place? Or were they just looking for an excuse to blame the other side for their fecklessness?
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Genuinely have no idea what you mean by that comment.
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Who am I being mean to?
I think you’re reading too much into this.
Personally I think the issue is that you guys have only two parties.
Keep churning that pipeline to fascism.
I shit on liberals mostly because of their notions on ‘altruistic capitalism’. As soon as they purchase an EV, they think they’re out there saving the world and most don’t think critically past that.
I really have to agree that it’s posts like this that made me give up on left wing politics, in certainly not right wing but I see no hope for the left until fundermental problems are fixed which I don’t believe politics or media is capable of addressing.
Further I am absolutely convinced a large portion of the loudest voices on climate change are so obsessed because they desperately want it to be the big doom that fucks up all the impressive things other people are achieving.
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Yes that’s exactly what I said and exactly everything that went into my thinking, congratulations you’re exactly the sort of binary thinking ideolog that makes any sort of political progress impossible on the left.
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Again you’re just yelling slogans that have nothing to do with what I said because you’re absolutely incapable of having a reasonable conversation on anything of substance. This is a perfect example of what we’re talking about.
sh.itholefor.nazis user
Every fucking time. Cryptofash instance.
Just remember, the argument relies on not just getting rid of cars, but drastically improving public transport.
World peace is more likely given government attitudes towards public services!
Disagree on noise. Electric cars are quieter when going slowly and the main noise is engine, but louder when going fast and the main noise is tires.
In fact, low speed electric cars are quiet enough that they’ve considered putting speakers in them to alert pedestrians and make the absence of feedback less disconcerting for drivers.
We’re so used to ICE cars that they’ve contemplated making electric cars pretend that they have an ICE.
They already do this in Europe and other countries where mixed car/pedestrian environments are more common. Electric cars must have some form of audible signature, usually a quiet whirring sound.
They should make it play the Jetsons car sound.
They’re still just as noisy above 30 km an hour due to air displacement and tire on the road.
Depending on the ICE car, a similar EV can actually be more noisy, because of the heavy battery causing more road friction = more noise.
This is what I’ve learned the past year during my general acoustics course. Over 50 km/h EVs produce more sound.
small amount of electric cars and mostly public transport
I really think we’re too far in the hole here.
I think fear grips people at every angle and none of us are brave enough to accept bold action for positive change in our society. It seems like most people are just retracting instead.
I vaguely remember that “Ye” (formerly Kanye West) once said something like he formed a think tank to build a city but the thing stopping his team was that “Ye” didn’t understand any of the concepts and he ran it into the ground.
I want public transportation, I think everyone wants it at this point but no no one understands why we need it. They all just want to escape.
(This message was brought to you by the new 2024 Ford Escape: just hit the road and escape to paradise)
I like my car. Nothing will change that opinion, because nothing beats having a personal vehicle.
There’s no comparison to the personal freedom of having a car versus being dependent on others to ferry you around. That’s why America will always be built around our great car infrastructure. We will never give up our freedom to roam our huge awesome land.
Nothing like freedom like actively removing people from having multiple choices of transit by making illegal to build anything that isn’t dependent on cars.
Nothing like freedom like being forced to spend thousands on a several ton machine to do any task outside your home.
Nothing like freedon like being forced to pay predatory insurance to private corporations in order to be legally allowed to drive your vehicle.
Nothing like freedom like being dependent on oil companies that actively lobby against you in order to drive the vehicle that you are forced to own.
Nothing like freedom like having infustructure that denies poor people and disabled people from participating in society.
Nothing like freedom like having no independence if you are too old, too young, too intoxicated, or too disabled to drive.
Nothing like freedom like being forced to have a license issued by your government in order to be independent.
Nothing like freedom like being forced to use a vehicle that spies on you and collects information such as your sexual activity, immigration status, ‘private’ conversations, location, and much more.
Tell me you can’t afford a car without telling me
I care about poor people so therefore I must be poor.
What a nonsense argument. Poor people don’t deserve freedom of movement?
And here again we see the typical attempt to put words in somebody’s mouth. I never said anything about what poor people deserve, that’s your words, not mine.
When you don’t have a substantial rebuttal, you just make up a strawman argument.
IMO everyone, regardless of economic stature, deserves every form of freedom legitimately available in society. For this example, if a poor person couldn’t afford a car I would suggest a cheap used motorcycle. I’ve bought a couple of those, one was $900 and the other was $2500.
This is incredibly insane when you consider the cost incurred to maintain a vehicle. No poor person would do this in the right mind it would be nothing but a debt trap. It’s shameful that public transit is downright near illegal and most metropolitan areas in North America and it is the best solution get over it
I would argue that a fast, frequent and comprehensive public transport system gives you more personal freedom. Being able to easily get around without having to worry about piloting a heavy vehicle, without the burden of maintenance, and being flexible once out due to not needing to worry about where you’re storing your car. Plug the gaps with (electric and/or cargo) bikes for shorter trips and car share for longer ones and you have a much better, more equitable transport system.
All public transport vehicles are heavier than my personal vehicle though. Also public transport doesn’t provide the freedom of choosing any destination that you want, and taking yourself there on your own schedule. That’s what I was talking about.
You aren’t piloting a public transport vehicle, a professional is and you are free to not worry about it.
A frequent and comprehensive public transport system does allow for that freedom, without all of the burdens of car ownership. Bikes and car share can be used to fill in the gaps when the public transport isn’t comprehensive enough.
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Why? Cars are more inefficient than nearly every other mode of transport, whether we’re talking energy efficiency, space efficiency or cost efficiency. Only air travel is worse. But those modes make up for that in some circumstances by being fast, convenient and flexible.
Because the infographic isn’t comparing cars to other forms of transit. It’s comparing one type of car to another. Electric cars are incredibly efficient, for what it is.
It’s a meme, it absolutely is comparing both kinds of cars to other modes of transport.
this entire chart is invalid in terms of it though, as half of it is comparing just basic traits of cars as a whole, I believe that was the point of the chart(at least in the way OP is using it). It’s intent is to try and persuade people away from cars, but it does a poor job doing so since it lacks an actual decent alternative in the chart. I think it would be more accepted if they added it in comparison to alternatives such as rail (but ironically that system also shares similar traits to cars).
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I’m sure this is unpopular this community but I feel like “fuck cars” folks are either living in a dream world where public transport can answer everyone’s transportation needs. If you live in a city with all the amenities you need where public transport is good and economically viable sure, “Fuck cars”, but if you don’t…
If you only have the option to drive and it looks like it will never change where you live, then yes, driving electric is better than driving an ICE car. You’re not the problem for needing to live your life with the limited options you have access to. However, that does not mean the intrinsic problems with cars disappear the instant they become electric, and this meme is mainly meant to respond to the techbro people who think just because electric cars exist now it makes transit obsolete or it solves literally everything wrong with cars in general, and use that to actively resist public transportation or attempt to turn public opinion against it. I should have added additional context to make that clearer.
Well I do drive electric now but I could not get by without a car. Honestly I would love it if public transport were viable for everyone. In London and Zurich I have experienced public transport that worked. Where I live a 1 hour car journey can mean a 3 or 4 hour trip by public transport and only if you are travelling at the right time of day. Unfortunately I don’t necessarily get to choose when I make some of those trips because it is part of my job. Unfortunately here, public transport is slow, expensive and unreliable here.
I know electric cars don’t solve everything, and maybe this meme is not exactly what I’m responding to, but for a lot of people, public transport is just not a viable alternative.
Like I said I know it’s not going to be a popular sentiment here.
People are advocating for denser cities with better public transport, not for you to use the shitty bus in your suburb.
Haven’t driven in over a decade, can confirm it’s like living a dream
but if you don’t…
…then either you’re a farmer or the area you live was built wrong and needs to be fixed.
I’m not a farmer, my nearest grocery store is 8 miles away. It’s rural and the cost of living is extremely cheap. it also snows a ton and often drops to sub zero temps.
What my solution? How does this get fixed for me?
Did you know that most people live in cities? About 60% of North America live in what is considered to be a metropolitan area.
In most of these areas aggressive expansion of public transit is a no brainer.
It doesn’t have to work everywhere to be a good idea
What my solution? How does this get fixed for me?
It doesn’t. But that’s okay, because nobody gives a shit about special snowflakes way off the tail end of the bell curve like you – solving the problem for the 80% of everybody else, for whom reasonable solutions do apply, is plenty good enough!
Demanding that any solution be perfect enough to solve it for literally everyone including you is just bad-faith reactionary bullshit.
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Bad example that you provided. I do not lease or make payments on my car. I may be on the end of the been curve but you save assume every person ever pays what’s in the articles headlines.
Using the calculator literally provided in the article you are citing my monthly cost for my car is $120. A lot less than the $1000/month they say as an average.
I’m also saving way more than that per month in rent by living where I do outside of a town or city.
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Well, can’t you resettle in a more compact town?
You assume your proposal is an “easy” solution. The main reason I live here in the first place is because the surrounding cities, that do have amenities and public transport, are much more expensive to live in. Is not that the town I live in is large in area, it’s quite walkable, it simply doesn’t have much.
It also reminds me of a guy I used to know who said he didn’t need a watch. Claiming he didn’t need to know the time that often. But what did he do? He asked everyone around him what the time was instead. Quite often. Oh and he was usually late to class.
Why am I telling you about him? Because it is the same sentiment as “I don’t need a car, if I want to see my friends (and relatives) I simply ask them to travel to me.”
You are clearly pointing one if the real solutions to individual motorized transportation, which is shared motorized transportation. In my area, people constantly borrow vehicles, equipments, tools and so on.
Nice bait
Not a bait. I guess I belong to a small group of people who decide to make life-changing commitments in order to minimize their impact on the environment.
