If only public transport was actually a usable replacement for using a car. Hint: It isn’t.
In the next town, the mayoress claims to like bikes, and “reforms” the city. So far all she managed were some cheap fixes like painting bike paths on roads and making some key connections useless for non-bike traffic. Which led to - more car-traffic, as now many cars have to drive nearly once around the city to reach their destination. What it didn’t lead to - a significant move to use of bikes and public transport, as the bike paths are not really safe and mostly patchwork, anyway, and public transport is too expensive and basically useless to anyone from outside the city.
I’m not against a bike-friendly city. But you can have good implementations and seriously bad ones.
And asking people to “stop driving cars” is a very narrow-minded and stupid idea from the start. There are a lot of reasons to drive a car. I mean, do you expect that they stock the supermarkets with cargo bikes? Do you want to force old people who cannot use the tram as it has high and steep stairs for entries to, what, walk into the city? Do you think the plumber or electrician will come to fix your flat with all the tools on a bike?
This “stop driving cars” is an idea cooked up by young and able people who live in the city and usually don’t leave it. Who maybe use a bike to ride to the next shop two roads over, or to university. And who actually can go on even longer rides occasionally, if they must. They have nothing better to do. Those who bear not much responsibility and drive, well, like bikers in a city, feeling overconfident and ignorant of the risk of dangerous driving behavior.
Their comment is missing the point. It essentially boils down to “the current infrastructure is bad” which is entirely what people advocating for less car centric design have been saying for a long time, but instead of using that as a reason to advocate for better they’re using it as a reason not to do anything
No. The reason why they don’t do anything is simply: Doing it right costs money. That cities either don’t have, or don’t want to invest. Turning a car-centric city into a bike and public transport friendly one is very expensive.
That’s changing the subject again. I was saying the commentor was effectively advocating for doing nothing because current infrastructure is poor.
It’s worth noting that car centric infrastructure is extremely expensive as well and requires constant upkeep. Bike infrastructure can often be made incrementally by simplying just requiring new/updated road to have bike lanes for instance
That is part of how the Netherlands got really good bike infrastructure and how a number of cities are getting better at it
EDIT: I should also mention that the car centric deisgn of many suburbs in particular is a large contributer to why they don’t have much money to begin with. The upkeep costs start to pile up and make the regions net negative for the local government’s income
The more a place is car centric, the higher these costs for upkeep will be (more traffic causing more damage in more places)
It’s worth noting that car centric infrastructure is extremely expensive as well and requires constant upkeep. Bike infrastructure can often be made incrementally by simplying just requiring new/updated road to have bike lanes for instance
Well, try that in a city environment. It might work with some of the main roads, but we are not in Cities:Skylines here where houses move or are automatically replaced when you install a wider road. I may have to add that here is not the US where many roads are so wide that you need a car to get to the other side ;-)
More than 80% (give or take) of the roads in cities here are so narrow that two (small) car lanes plus the pedestrian sidewalks are basically “it”. The road in front of my house is, IIRC, between 5.4 and 5.8m wide - without having a sidewalk. Try adding a bike path here. And if you turn basically each and every side road into one-way roads in order to add bike paths might lead to serious acceptance problems.
The more a place is car centric, the higher these costs for upkeep will be (more traffic causing more damage in more places)
Well, while I won’t contradict your notion that more traffic causes more damage, I’d ask you to keep in mind that one truck does as much damage to a road as 40000 cars (yes, it is that much, the damage factor is x^4^, with x being the relative mass, and the calculation base being a normal European car, not a six ton American pickup). So, as long as you want to have your supermarket stocked and your amazon order delivered, the damage created by private cars is simply irrelevant.
For the first part, yes that will vary place to place. That’s why I said “often”, but it’s a viable method in quite a large number of locations. Especially in those which are currently some of the worst places for walkabilty/biking/public transit at the moment. Places with narrow streets are generally speaking more walkable to begin with. There are still other ways to make improvements anyhow
For the second, I am also talking about the quantity of roads (the more places part). More car centric places are going to have more roads to maintain in general.
But it’s still worth mentioning that car centric design can still can lead to trucks being used in places where there are viable transportation methods like trains (this applies more so for longer distances than just delivery to houses but a number of cities do have highways that run through them).
I don’t live in that car-centric shithole. So much for assumptions.
And I take calling me “rightwinger” as a serious insult.
There are cities in my country that managed to strike a good balance between cars and bikes. E.g. with continuous bike paths and stuff like that. But most cities here have two problems: They simply jump short with bike paths and leave safe bike access as a crazy patchwork on the city map, making it more or less useless. And they keep public transport back because it actually costs money.
I’ve nothing against bikes. Occasionally I rant against stupid and irresponsible bikers, of which there are too many, and that give normal bikers a bad name. I would love to see bike-friendly cities, but I also see cities stumbling around like a beheaded chicken when it comes to implementation.
So, as long as public transport is no usable alternative, a city has to deal with cars as a means of people coming into a city as workers and customers. The alternative would be a city that completely relies on local people. Might be environment friendly, but simply not realistic. They just don’t have the purchase power to keep a cities businesses alive.
The pedestrian-friendly cities I know often allow vans and trucks to resupply stores on the walking streets, even if normal traffic is disallowed. They’re also encouraged to deliver in the morning.
Trying to point the issue to disabilities is often extremely counter-intuitive; it’s often hard for disabled people to use a car for everything (picture wheelchair transfers every time), as well as walking across huge parking lots or inside megastores. It’s often far better if they can just make it to a small store directly without excessive worry about high-traffic crosswalks. Public transit is often wheelchair accessible by default.
The mindset of completely banning cars is not one I’ve joined up with; as you say, contractors or the slim minority of workers transporting heavy goods should likely still be using cars. But that experience of driving is often terrible when every single person (on their own with no heavy cargo) is using a car for every trip.
But that experience of driving is often terrible when every single person (on their own with no heavy cargo) is using a car for every trip.
OK, but what would be the alternative? Especially for those living outside and entering the city either for work of for shopping?
When I was young, I went basically everywhere by bike, as I neither has a car, nor could I afford public transport (which would have cost me about 60% of available money). So I went to work and back on my bike (15km each way), and then to university and back in the evening (another 20km each way). Well, that was when I was young. Nowadays, this is no longer an option.
I don’t expect people to commute 20+km a day by bike. A safe bike garage at a P+R place would be nice and reduce at least part of the way by bike, but it does not exist. And public transport, well, at this P+R, there are good connections into the cities, but they have a low frequency and take quite some time, apart from costing a shitload of money for what they offer.
My bicycle commute is 22km each way, and after riding for a few weeks, I was up for riding that plus a loop around the local lake (with a friend), then back home all on a Saturday, after doing that commute every day of the week before
Now e-bikes exist that’s even achievable by quite unfit people
Putting aside that I’ve seen some relatively old people continue to stay healthy on bikes (often as leisure, not utility), generally the hope would be that public transit would cover the needs for longer distances. As you said, many current forms are pretty bad, but that’s because our money is spent (that is KEY - we SPEND the money either way!!) on road maintenance and new parking garages, and of course individually on car maintenance.
We also have these long distances to cover to stores in part because of the big wide roads and parking lots that elongate our trips. As it turns out, civic centers don’t have to be so spread out.
I’d also expect most people not to need to go into the city for all forms of shopping. If you just need groceries for the week, but your town has nothing to offer in walking distance, it almost sounds like there’s a business begging to be built there, even if it’s a two-room local affair.
When I go to the city for shopping or attending a meeting, it is maybe once per month. I’m not stupid enough to do everyday shopping in the city when I have five supermarkets within 10 minutes walking distance. No, when I go to the city, it is usually to visit a few selected highly specialized shops that can only survive in an urban center with an appropriate environment. And I go there to see, touch, feel the goods I purchase in contrast to those who buy online and return every other piece because it either does not fit or whatever. Saves me a lot time, and protects the environment, as less returns are needlessly destroyed.
With our next city, well… spending money on road maintenance basically does not happen. They only repair what would otherwise fall apart, and this only adds to the chaos in this city. And as I said, money to properly reconfigure the city to make it bike friendly is simply not there.
If you just need groceries for the week, but your town has nothing to offer in walking distance, it almost sounds like there’s a business begging to be built there, even if it’s a two-room local affair.
While this sounds a good idea at first, literally tens of thousands of shops of this kind have died in my country in the last years, because there is simply no money to be made. There are a few shops that are run by local groups of volunteers because such a shop would not make enough money to survive otherwise.
Buses where I live have a cargo rack at the front. If you had four bags of shopping (though that’s really quite a lot - the bags are big) you would tie the tops closed and leave them in one of the racks until you reached your destination
If you had four bags of shopping (though that’s really quite a lot - the bags are big) you would tie the tops closed and leave them in one of the racks until you reached your destination
Along with the 75 other passengers doing the same thing?
And what if it’s paper goods and raining like fuck?
Can doesnt mean do. Most people drive distances that are longer than 8 minutes.
If the argument to give up the car for shopping and to replace it with a bus is countered with the amount of bags on the bus, then your counter to that cannot be to just walk.
I have my own cart that I walk to the store with, I never have much trouble with it, and it’s super useful when I need to get heavy things like milk. I’ve never brought it on the metro as I’ve never had any reason to, but it would not be too difficult to do so. It’s no more difficult than carrying a suitcase or two to the airport.
Okay but this isn’t what happens. When using services like instacart they will batch only maybe two or three orders in a car. Unless there are other services that I’m not aware of that will batch more?
I don’t think grocery translates well to mass delivery because it increases rates of spoilage and damaged produce.
I live in UK and all the major supermarkets do 20-50 deliveries in one fully refrigerated van. You do have to book it a couple of days in advance but that’s the cost of the service, obviously you can get Uber and deliveroo instant deliveries but that’s dumb as fuck.
This is clearly a culture difference between where I live and wherever you live (please share that info)
But yes it’s EXACTLY how it works in most of Europe.
You don’t. If you live where cars are not needed, e.g. Tokyo, you’ll just walk to your nearest small grocer and get the ingredients you need. That’s what I did when I stayed in Japan for work.
And that really worries me. The government should offer free options for people like that. Uber Eats and Instacart exploits the hell out of people like that.
See, I knew one of you motherfuckers was going to come in here and make it obvious you just don’t care about the actual facts, you’ve already made up your minds and seek to make up everyone else’s minds for them.
Maybe instead of treating every single discussion of anything like an epic shitfight, you all should just pool your money together, buy your own land, incorporate it as a separate county, and build your own walkable cities and leave the rest of us the fuck alone.
Because you all are doing nothing but demonstrating for us once again the negativity and childish banality of the human condition, and I’m tired of it.
The immaturity, the short-sightedness, the complete lack of empathy or consideration for anyone who disagrees with you – you all are attacking people, not just me, who are calling out walkable cities for being unviable for disabled people. One stupid motherfucker here even suggested people like that use delivery services to get their groceries instead of being able to drive, knowing Instacart and Uber Eats exploits the disabled and isn’t available everywhere. No consideration that it’s unfair for disabled people who can’t walk far regardless. No consideration that what you want isn’t completely viable because different people with different needs exist, nothing.
Y’all are just angry other people are opposing you because you think us chucklefucks online disagreeing with you is a barrier to what you want and I’m tired of putting up with it.
So until you change, I’m going to be angry at you, and if you don’t like me being angry at you for your own behavior, that’s a you problem. I don’t need you to listen to me or even like me, but you apparently need my approval for your stupid policies and ill-thought-out ideas, and therefore you need me a whole lot more than I need you. The only one hurt by my anger is you. You’re the one complaining about it.
You’re fucking political parasites and I’m tired of it.
Now let’s watch your dumb ass prove my point and do nothing but address my anger and my emotions while not addressing the needs of the disabled people who would be thrown under the bus with car bans at all. 🙄
There are people who need more aid than the busses are equipped for and the bus line runs specially equipped shuttles out to them on request at no cost (back when the busses had fares it cost the same as a bus ride).
It’s not that way in most other cities on the planet and you and I both know this.
And it doesn’t address one of the many serious problems with car bans – denying the disabled the right to travel on their own terms and not the bus services.
What happens when they cut routes or service?
Or refuse service for political reasons like during the lockdowns?
Or otherwise dictate when and where you get rides, or who can go with you, or how you travel, or how much stuff you can bring with you?
Or if the service becomes overwhelmed and they simply can’t provide rides to everybody?
It’s terrible and fucked up to expect the disabled to put up with it just so the c/FuckCars chucklefucks can get rid of what they deem as eyesores.
i don’t know how it is in most cities on the planet because i don’t live in them and haven’t looked into their public transit.
part of having a common good is defending and upholding it. usually when there’s a problem with the routes people show up and yell loud enough that something gets done. I don’t think they’ve cut a route and not replaced it with one that has more stops or split it into two that provide more coverage in like 20 years.
during covid here there were fewer busses running, but it was because of reduced ridership and they ran more on demand shuttles to make up the difference. they started installing big crazy air filters on the top of the busses too, so now you can’t even smell a fart on one.
when there’s more people than the route can handle you gotta wait, same as when there’s more traffic than the road can handle. here when that unexpectedly happens they redirect people to other routes when possible.
a lot of what youre talking about is disabled people getting equal access to what car drivers have, which is good when the disabled person lives in a place that expects everyone to have a car. if a place were to ban cars, expect people to use public transport and operate public transport with enough volume and coverage to replace them, it would be better for the disabled than expecting each individual disabled person to own a car with expensive modifications to accommodate them and become licensed to operate it or hire a driver or service in the case they cannot become licensed.
serving the disabled and elderly is what’s driven the expansion of bus routes and accessibility here. we don’t even have car bans and it’s a benefit for so many people!
You accuse others of childish banality yet the only condescending jackass in this discussion is you as you lob insults and talk down to people.
News flash, walkable cities and public transit are better for disabled people than cars. Have a person in a wheel chair try to drive a car. Lets a blind person peel out on a motorcycle why don’t you you dipshit? Know how easy it is for a paraplegic to use a subway? They take a ramp or elevator down then roll on and off the cars as they please. Know how a blind person can get around without needing a friend with a car? They can make their way to a bus station where they can be taken across town.
Oh and finally, a “car ban”? Who mentioned flatly banning cars you disingenuous idiot? We want to design infrastructure for more than just cars, not ban them.
One way to come across as childishly banal and negative is to rant at someone for how bad of a person they are because of your own idiotic assumptions about their position.
You’re an insanely unserious person so log off and look into what people are actually advocating for instead of swallowing gallons of bullshit from people that know better. It’s unbecoming of someone with your smug sense of superiority.
And here’s stupid motherfucker number 1 coming down the hall and up to the stage to prove my point.
This isn’t a conversation about your feelings or mine, this is a discussion about the viability of walkable cities for the disabled. And they’re not viable for people like that and never truly can be, not without cars. So unless you assume every resident is riding around in a wheelchair and plan accordingly, which you can’t do because most major cities were built way before the ADA and similar laws in other countries were passed – even before the wheelchair and walkers were invented.
What you want requires trillions of dollars in investment you are never going to get. Not unless you do what I told you to. I gave you stupid assholes a solution, but you’re still not listening. Why?
Because for you, this is all about your feelings and not about building a better world at all.
You’re up in here writing walls of text to personally attack me, like you always do, because all you care about are your stupid fucking emotions. And I emphasize your emotions.
You clearly don’t give a fuck about the old people who will be trapped in their houses, isolated and alone, because they can’t make use of anything other than a car.
You don’t care about the motherfuckers in wheelchairs who you will be effectively imprisoning either.
You sure as fuck don’t care about me other than “How can we exploit this asshole’s anger to make them look bad and win the argument?” because all this is about for you is winning an epic battle against me that is only happening in your own head, because I hurt your feelings by telling you facts you didn’t want to hear, and now you’re getting revenge.
I called you stupid assholes and you, personally, a stupid motherfucker and you will not display one bit of temerity or maturity at all by ignoring it; in fact, that’s all you’re going to talk about because all you care about is how you feel. Not the actual topic of debate.
And that’s why I don’t like you, and I will continue to be an asshole to you until you change, and not before. Like I said, you need me a whole hell of a lot more than I need shallow, stupid, petty, selfish, emotional and violent scumbags like you.
Sorry but reality doesn’t stroke with your concerns. Old people are stuck in car centric cities when they can no longer drive. Disabled people are stuck in car centric cities when they cannot drive. Cities that prioritize other modes of transport have more options available to both groups and you’re mad over nothing.
Edit: just look at Dutch walkable cities as an example - they’re perfectly accessible for old people and disabled people. Sorry but the idea disabled people can only use cars and need car-centric infrastructure to live in a city is delusional.
Sorry but the idea disabled people can only use cars and need car-centric infrastructure to live in a city is delusional
And one of the most tired scapegoats used by people opposing it, we all know they don’t give a flying fuck about accessibility when it comes to any other city planning or infrastructure project.
Pot meet kettle lol. People are making actual arguments about how a walkable city is better for every class of person, not just one specific class, and you’re throwing them all out, without entertaining the thoughts at all, and with a fair bit of vitriol.
Any situation where the average person doesn’t need any special equipment (a car) to get their things done is going to be better for everyone. As a off the top of the head example, when no one else NEEDS to drive, for instance, the people who do need to can more readily. Or they can utilize other, cheaper, specialized equipment, like powered wheelchairs more easily, because everything is within walking distance and the streets aren’t packed with people in cars.
That’s not what’s happening but thanks for showing the class you haven’t been paying attention at all.
You know, if all you invested a fifth of a third of a quarter of the energy you’re investing trying to get something over on me onto building these walkable cities you supposedly care about, we’d all be on Saturn by now.
Or, if we’re changing cities already we could make more accessible homes and public transit. If someone in a wheelchair can’t get onto a train you’ve made the train wrong.
Man. There’s a Korean drama on Netflix… I think it was All of Us Are Dead. The apartment building had a bodega-like grocery either on the first floor or connected to it. If we’re going to redesign, can it be like that, maybe?
I traveled up and down the East Coast with my dad when he was in a wheelchair. Every city was a little different but Amtrak has made their trains this way. A special ramp is needed, which has to be fetched by someone. Baltimore was the worst about it, but they did get us on just fine, and kicked a guy out of the handicapped starting. New York City was incredible. Dude hung out with us until our train showed up and made sure we got on and situated before regular boarding started. Though I think he had dealt with something similar personal and took it upon himself. DC was at about the level you’d expect and was pretty pleasant.
Great to hear, that is actually a lot better than I would have expected. It would still be ideal if you could use it as easily as someone not using a wheelchair but we do have to live in the real world and accommodating everyone is complicated and expensive.
At 85 years old my Mum can’t drive or walk, she does her own shopping with an electric mobility scooter and occasionally needs the help of others … that works fine for her because she lives in what might be called a “15 minute city” these days.
By having specially designed cars that enable them to drive.
Even the ones who by the nature of their disability can’t do anything mentally or visually taxing, like drive, don’t disprove or negate the need for cars because everyone else with disabilities need them to get around. Public transport simply isn’t suitable enough for them.
Even old blind people who can’t pass driving tests use Uber or Lyft, because public transport simply isn’t safe or suitable enough for them, especially during grocery runs.
Even old blind people who can’t pass driving tests use Uber or Lyft, because public transport simply isn’t safe or suitable enough for them, especially during grocery runs.
You are assuming a car centric city here. In a walking and transit oriented city, it is safe and suitable for blind people to be independent and move by themselves. Only cars make the cities unsafe and the lack of transit makes it unsuitable to use something else than a car.
And I am assuming that because they are the norm you’re complaining about in the first place.
If they’re not, then go move to one.
It’s as simple as that. But you don’t get to demand other people lose their cars just because you don’t like them, especially disabled people that will always need them as no walkable city will replace the individual autonomy, carrying capacity and convenience a car provides.
You seem to live in a car centric city with really shitty public transportation. My city has decent regular bus service and for those who need extra help, they have more handy centric busses that will directly pick people up on a schedule. I think even the tiny town I grew up in has a service that does the same because there are tons of older people that are not able to drive. We also have a shuttle service to the train station if you live too far away from one.
There are solutions to these problems that tons of cities have had no problem implementing. It sounds like either yours is not one of them or possibly it is not a service you need so you just plain do not think about it.
So in other words, disabled people still need cars – they can’t ride bikes or e-bikes and scooters are too small for them – and you didn’t think about what you’re saying.
What? I said it depends on the disability. Depending on why you can’t walk to the store, a bike or e-bike might work. Not every disability is the same. I know people that can’t walk to the store but can use an e-bike.
How is a mobility scooter too small for a disabled person? It’s literally designed for the purpose. And by Microcar I mean what you see in Amsterdam as microcars, not ‘a small car’.
As a disabled person who can’t drive, I ride my ebike everywhere. I can easily fit a week’s worth of groceries because it’s a cargo bike, which makes it even easier to balance and steer because of the way it’s weighted.
Im lucky to live in an area that is becoming increasingly bike friendly. 10 years ago I barely left the house because it wasn’t safe to ride on the road, and I couldn’t afford uber/taxi, and there were no accessible bus stops near me.
When something is more than 20km away I will take a bus or an uber - but there’s no reason that uber couldn’t be a microcar, or a light vehicle (like an electric version of the old milkman lorries) for those that need ramp access or electric wheelchair transport.
At the moment in many places, disabled people are already forced to use paratransit systems because adaptive cars and taxi services are prohibitively expensive.
There will always be a need for some people, and some communities to have and depend on cars. The goal is to reduce this to as few people as possible by making it easier for those that are able to choose other methods.
Friends. Family. Building facilities. Government programs.
The simple fact is that at some point, people just can’t be completely independent. It’s the nature of growing old. This is only really a problem because we have such a strict independence culture, where if you can’t do for yourself, you may as well just die, society doesn’t have time for you.
If we recontextualize this, and see growing old and more feeble not as some personal failing and instead as the symbol of a long life, if we start looking out for those around us, and if we start building up the facilities we need to allow people to gracefully enter elder-hood without stigma, we’d all be a bit better off.
I’m not like super pro car or anything but your argument in my experience doesn’t really hold up. I work at a farm and we have a lot of elderly folks come in and shop by themselves. They drive themselves and shop themselves but I doubt they could do that with a walker and if they didn’t have a car I doubt they’d be finding a different way to come out here.
Rural life is a whole different beast from urban. I won’t ever make the argument that rural living people shouldn’t have cars. So yeah, plus one for that argument.
Rural life definitely, but I’m in suburbia hahaha. I just can’t imagine public transportation being able to replace what a car can do for elderly people
If the individual is so bad off they can’t manage to get on a (more robust than we currently have) form of public transit, I really question if they should be driving. The simple fact of life is that at a certain point, maintaining complete independence isn’t a reality. This isn’t a bad thing, we should be moving towards embracing building the systems we need for people to get help at that stage of life.
These people have no problem driving or taking care of themselves, I’m sure plenty shouldn’t be driving, but doing something like shopping and then walking your groceries back home simply isn’t an option for a lot of people even if public transportation was more robust. Sure, past a certain point everyone loses independence, but there are plenty that don’t need to that you are advocating should
I didn’t say it had to be an individual who needed to help. It could be any number of programs, services, or even yeah, individuals.
I mentioned mixed use buildings in another part of this thread, something like an apartment complex with a bodega-like grocery on the first floor or directly attached. What about moving more towards that kind of building? There are a ton of solutions that don’t require cars.
In what world is a disabled person able to board a car on their own but not a bus or train? And in what world are those busses and trains not staffed with people to help? Are we talking self-driving busses and cars with wheelchair driving options as a standard?
Edit: Seems the response is for the disabled person to: JuSt SpEnD mOrE mOnEy ; but we couldn’t possibly be bothered to spend more on public transit to make it more accessible.
At least in my country, bus drivers that need to help people in the wheelchair to get up on the bus are already at the edge of their patience. Don’t even talk about helping them stuff seven bags of groceries as well. That’s why unfortunately, taxis are still a necessity
I think the best solution, if we can redesign our cities, is to incorporate more mixed use buildings, or at least more mixed zoning. Why even have to have a bus if your building has a connected grocery and 3 other small shops on the same block.
These issues only really exist because everything is SO spread out. We have strict zoning regulations that mean having a grocery in a residential area is at best a challenge, and realistically impossible. This means we have to go further for the most mundane daily tasks, and this means we need more robust transportation, including cars.
ETA:rereading this it looks like I’m making an argument for no cars, buses or anything. I’m absolutely pro expanding public transportation, merely stating that if things were slightly different, you could eliminate the bus entirely from this situation specifically
Sure this applies for suburban or rural life. Everyone has the space to have a car there. In a city, which is what my entire argument stems around (you can see elsewhere in this thread where I state I wouldn’t ever dream of taking cars from rural people), it’s more like “the car is in the parking garage connected to the apartments. And the bus stop is just in front of the apartments, maybe down on the corner”
Thankfully, my little corner store will remain open during floods and other natural disasters as well as pandemics and such. So it will never be necessary for me to have more than 24 hours worth of food in my house.
I used to buy ingredients for my meals every second day while living in Europe. Always what I wanted or was on sale. No meal planning for the week and making a huge order / weekend mall spree.
Just walk in to the local shop on your way to/from wherever else you’re going (or just to get out of the house for two minutes if you’ve been working from home) … that way you can have fresh ingredients every day, and you’re walking a bit regularly so you don’t get overweight easily
It’s super simple. You stop there on your way home. When I was in Berlin, I would generally hit up the grocery store a few times a week. I did not have to worry about produce going bad because it would be used with one of my meals on the next couple of days.
I will say that I’ve been able to bring 3-4 grocery bags onto a bus, which is enough to last me around 2 weeks. I’ve done this fairly consistently (basically whenever it’s too cold/snowy to bike) for the last couple years. It might not be possible for a family without more than one person making the trip, but for an individual it can definitely work.
I completely understand that, and I know that’s why a lot of people need cars. I was primarily responding to the parent comment claiming that it wouldn’t work for anyone because it’d be impossible to bring enough groceries with you on the bus/train.
Oh, I see now. Sorry about that. Yes it’s possible to use public transport in cases where you don’t need much and the time necessary isn’t outlandish. I think I was conflating several messages in my head when I responded to yours. Glad to see some people are able to be civil here.
This is ok though, going once per 14days for that 90% of stuff and having your car for that is ok. Otherwise if you run out of something, hop to your nearest store. Also here some of my friends and family are not reachable via public transport so I use car for that. But dont use it for commute every day, going to the beach/mountains every weekend, going to the store every other day, taking kids to school and back etc. For many this is completely doable but people are lazy
The reason you haul entire shopping carts at once is because the trip to the grocery store is a big planned deal. That’s also the reason people buy bulk items and then let half of them expire.
The “ideal” for bikers and train riders would be easier, quicker trips to small stores to get ingredients for the next few days. I find I’m able to fit most of my needs into one pannier.
This changes sharply if you’re buying for more people than just yourself.
The reason I haul entire shopping carts at once is because I don’t want to waste time shopping every day. A big 2-hour haul per month vs. 1-2 20-minute trips to the local corner konbini every day. Plus some of the bigger bulk stores deliver (this is Hinode, Tokyo; rural ones probably don’t).
Buying in bulk is far less expensive: you pay less (duh), but you spend a lot less time on it too. If I’m buying groceries just-in-time and the nearest shop doesn’t have the ingredient I need that day, I have to go to a different shop for that one item. Lots of time wasted, and a lot of stress on top. You can’t change your mind later either, because you’ve already bought ingredients for that one meal. So I prefer to have things buffered in stock, and resupply in advance. You also use far less plastic packaging that way, e.g. buying a 25-liter premix syrup canister instead of hundreds of coke bottles.
Not to mention that the grocery stores that are well located are usually more expensive. The cheaper options exist in less number and so it makes it less convenient or sometimes not possible at all to get to on a normal work day.
My experience is different. If I go for grocery once a week I buy a lot of stuff which rots or expires. If I buy it daily I just buy what I need, and what I want that day.
Yes that’s how it works. You save some money and spend it in other shit.
Also I don’t have a car just so I can go get groceries. I have a car for a multitude of other reasons and I can get groceries. Driving 5 mins to a supermarket has an insignificant cost, and if that supermarket is cheaper then you can save multiples of that.
Regarding the stuff expiring, that’s just your experience. I have the opposite. There’s plenty of non perishable shit that I can get when it’s on sale because I can carry a ton of it if I came by car. Meanwhile if I go shopping by foot and I need laundry detergent I’ll just have to get whatever they have at that time. You can save a ton of money like that.
For easily perishable food yes buying regularly is better but that also means a ton of wasted time going to the supermarket very frequently even if to get only a few items.
If a grocery store is within walking distance why not make a trip of it with the whole family? Many hands make light work. Or, just because a city is human focused instead of car focused doesn’t mean no cars at all (at least in the way I would implement it) you could rent a car for a few hours every couple of weeks.
Obviously these ideas won’t work for everyone but they’re just off the top of my head, and unfortunately there is no system that will work for everyone. We just have to try for works better.
I mean the idea is that good urban planning would enable shorter and more frequent grocery store trips. Rather than a supercenter supplying everyone within 30 miles, requiring long drives, you’d have things distributed by need, i.e. general food stores every couple miles, more specialist places potentially farther away. Our current layout and shopping habits are contingent on car infrastructure and massive federal subsidies.
Would also decrease waste and increase general health, since fresher, less processed food could be purchased.
I wonder how many fuck cars people will buy a car when they finally graduate and get a job and realise they want 1 hr 30 commuting every day instead of 3 hours?
I didn’t. Even when I lived an hour away from my job, it was about as fast by train as driving, and I could spend that time productively or relaxing instead of concentrating on.
If it takes twice as long without a car, that’s a problem that should be solved!
Nope. I’m touching on the student politics that infest sites like this. Opinions that are easy to hold when your only destination is your university campus.
Cool. I’ve been working for 8 years, commuting in the range of 10-15 km to my various places of work throughout that period, with the exception of the pandemic period during which I worked remotely.
Not once have I driven a car to any of my jobs. A mix of public transportation and cycling has covered all of my needs, and I wouldn’t have saved any time by opting to drive.
This invalidates this terrible comment, so let’s not keep repeating.
I’m 46, the parts of my life where I haven’t needed to use a car every day have been great for my physical and mental health … now I live too far from work I use a little 125 motorbike to commute, and it’s still much nicer than having to take a car. When I am forced to take a car, the one I have is small and economical.
I didn’t start figuring this out until I was 30, maybe you need a few more years to mature enough to throw off the consumerist mindset?
Hi, im 26 years old and i have the money to get a car and make enough money to Use the car. But i dont have one, i use every day the train to get to work. 5 min with bike to the trainstation 31 min with the train, 5 min on foot to my work place, 5 min back to the trainstation, 22 min back with train and 10-15 min with my bike home. With a car I would need 38 min (gmaps). I pay 49€ in month and can use bus or trai In whole Germany. With a car it would be 66km per day. The car of our family uses 6,5 L/ 100km 66km = 4,29L × 20 (workdays) =85,8L * 1,82 (price per liter fuel)= 155,61€ and that is only the fuel with out the tax for the car insurance and not the wear out and without the 2 year controll checkup. And with that I can say train is faster and cheaper for me so I don’t need a car.
Tried that. If you want to rent for the weekend you waste a bunch of time picking up and dropping off the vehicle. And say you are using it for camping, you have to pack all your stuff that same day then unload everything before drop off. There are also restrictions as to where you can take rentals, like gravel roads are off limits. Just some examples
You are massively original. It’s great that a meme can deflect any criticism of your consumerist habits. Now you can do whatever the fuck you want as well as feeing morally superior about doing it, because you are only doing it because the bad men in suits made you. Very clever.
Yeah, no. I have a car and I hate driving it. I hate others having cars and driving them. I hate public transport being ignored over car infrastructure leaving them completely impractical. I hate our cities being ruined in order to work around cars, when metros are underground, and trains are overground but take way less space since they can take in way more people and transfer them way faster. I hate car accidents being one of the leading causes of death in my country. Fuck cars
I’m in Germany. That’s how long it takes with the trains to get to my Workplace. And I still rather work from Home because I don’t have to travel 3 to 4 hours a day.
Holy shit you guys have bad infrastructure. Even worse than ours.
I also generally rather use the train despite its problems. Especially when I’m not sure if I will be drinking or taking other drugs.
Not really, the images and travel descriptions you’re reading here are the exception, not the rule. The US has great infrastructure, just not for public transportation as there isn’t enough centralized usage and the locations are far apart. It would take me 4 hours to go to work by bus, but it takes me 25 min by car.
Infrastructure can apply to different things, you can have great infrastructure for cars, but not trains. You can have well maintained power lines, but poor internet connectivity. You can have a robust water utility, but a mixed storm and sewer system.
If you’re gonna point out one bad part of infrastructure and say all of it’s bad then idk what to say for you.
You can go from London to Edinburgh by car (412 miles) in 7.5 hrs or by train in 5.5 hrs.
You can go from Richmond to Charleston by car (432 miles) in 6 hours or by train in 13.25 hrs.
That sounds like it’s a vicious cycle. There isn’t any public transport so there are no people using the public transport which causes public transports to be bad, so there isn’t anybody using it
It is to a point, but when you reach that point it’s just not feasible to have public transportation. The city I work in has a light rail train, it has a robust busing system, but people also travel from 20+ different small towns around this one and at a certain point that system breaks down. If I were to take the bus I would still need a car to get to the next small town where the bus stop into the large town is.
The fact is that the most of the US isn’t designed like old world cities which were built with public transportation and foot traffic in mind.
You are allowed hate something you own and depend on. What I find fuck cars people are about is how much cars are catered for and it’s still horrible to use in a lot of places.
Normally I live in a, relatively speaking, new city - and everything is so bloody far away, sure some things are more centralised but plenty of things are getting built in places with no public transport connections or an easy way to walk to.
For 3 years at uni I lived in a very old town, and everything, just everything, was in the town centre, you could walk everywhere with no issues.
The difference is one place was built for people, and the other was built for cars.
I live in a third world country and have to usually have to take taxis to get anywhere without being a sweaty mess and I’d love to the point where public transportation can get you anywhere in the metro, similar to how Hong Kong (where income taxes are pretty low as far as I know) does it.
A lot. Because our infrastructure and zoning basically demand you buy a car. That’s not the point. The point is to advocate change through local government.
What comes first the cars or the infrastructure? It’s a bit of a chicken/egg scenario. People aren’t going to lobby to inconvenience their lives whe it doesn’t make sense.
We were literally the first industrial nation. We already have infrastructure, which is why development is so expensive.
We are currently in a political situation with high speed rail. The costs are soaring and it’s nothing to do with neoliberalism, it’s because to build additional infrastructure in Britain you have to bulldoze through existing shit that is owned by people already.
Nationalising the railways did raise costs by about 1/5 in real terms, but we also have some the safest rails in Europe. They also became more reliable and investment increased 9 fold.
Ah, well thank neoliberal privatization for that. Thatcher and Reagan fucked their respective countries so damn hard to the benefit of their wealthy friends.
Look up the Beecher report (hopefully I got the name right) to find out what happened to your trains. It was politicians getting bought by car manufacturers.
These people are ridiculous. They want to gaslight people who have to drive into thinking we’re bad people and when we call them out on the fact that there is no public transit infrastructure built they’re just like “well all people have to do is build the infrastructure!” Bitch where? And who? And how do we make them? And with what money? I’m so sick of hearing “you should drive a smart car because it makes sense for my DINK ass and I know what’s best”. My home is in an ocean of suburbia. They gonna just bulldoze a whole swath of homes to install a rail? They’ve been talking about installing a rail from DFW to Austin/Houston for the past 40 years and there was even room for it once upon a time. You can’t just say the magical solution is to just “build trains”. We don’t love our cars, these fuckcars people are just lunatics. As you point out the vast majority of them are almost certainly children. The rest are fortunate enough to have never experienced a place with poor public transit.
Absolutely, unfortunately those fuckers have dogpiled the shit out of me like I haven’t heard their shitty argument 100 times and as though they have something original and interesting to say. Puts you off saying anything that doesn’t exactly follow the hive mind.
I wonder how many people will be forced to buy a car to be able to function in society even though they hate the idea owning a car and in any other developed nation they could go car free in an equivalent city because they have better public transport and/or bike infrastructure
Lol sure you were, and that’s why you were talking to me and not OP 😆
I know you think asking people if they want a Royale with Cheese on a shitty burning microphone is a decent career, but it’s not. Now get me my McFlurry and don’t you dare try to pull that “the machine’s broken” crap on me. You just don’t want to clean it.
I wonder how many fuck cars people will buy a car when they finally graduate and get a job and realise they want 1 hr 30 commuting every day instead of 3 hours?
My wife and I own two cars and live outside the most urban parts of our city. I actually love cars, especially when I get to drive a standard transmission. But we both are firmly in the FuckCars camp.
We walk, bike, and use public transit when we can, and we vote to improve the pedestrian infrastructure in our area whenever we can. We love vacationing in places with good public transit, and would live in such places if circumstances allowed.
Part of the frustration in the FuckCars community is the very thing you said in your post. Cities are built around cars, which means every other form of commuting is secondary and therefore worse than it could be. This is what we want to change. Build cities around people. Get rid of massive parking lots, dangerous stroads, etc. If people need cars to get from city to city, or outside of cities, totally fine. But they shouldn’t be necessary for day-to-day in populated areas.
Cities could be so much better, and we know this because there ARE cities that are better. It just takes effort and time.
You don’t have to give up personal transportation to build public transportation. Are you high? And no, it does not take infinite money. How the fuck do you think that they’re are cities who have already implemented decent public transportation got them? They certainly did not have infinite money.
Nah it’s typical online leftism. Good at defining problems and not so good at working up solutions that don’t just bubble down to “everyone should think like me”.
There are plenty of good solutions. Just because you’re only hearing the very valid complaints doesn’t mean solutions don’t exist. They just aren’t going to be easy or immediate. Life doesn’t work that way.
Cars are indeed here to stay. But we can make cities much better over time.
Well yeah of course. But I think what you’re not factoring in is that people will always choose the convenience of cars. People don’t just drive to and from places in the same city.
I believe I did mention cars as valuable for use outside of cities. I live in the US, cars are an absolute necessity outside of major population centers.
Even so, cities are better when cars are unnecessary within them. CAPABLE, but unnecessary.
Yup, I’ve been there. The story is the same with Paris and NYC. I still prefer those cities over, say, Los Angeles. Cities that have made an effort to be livable without cars are better than cities that haven’t.
Well yeah of course they cater to everyone. But a lot of people around here are pro designing cities to be deliberately annoying to drive in which is just the other extreme to LA.
There’s a city near me (so-called, but realistically a subset of the greater metro area) which has made changes to attempt to slow down cars. Curvier roads, curbs that cut out the shoulder near intersections (which still allow for parking but make the road seem narrower, psychologically, so people subconsciously slow down), strict enforcement of speed limits, cutting four-lane roads down to two-lane with a turn lane between them and bike lanes on the sides, etc.
Arguably these changes make it “deliberately annoying to drive in,” but this area is still perfectly drivable, and is still often the fastest way to get from one place to another if they’re nearby. And yet it has made that area much more pedestrian and bike friendly. I am far more likely to see people on foot there than in other parts of the city (barring the downtown area, which is of course most densely populated and therefore full of people).
It also makes it a delight to bike through.
This is the kind of change I want to see. I want cars to share the road. (To this end, I don’t hesitate to bike in the road. If people are annoyed because I top out around 28mph with my eBike, then they should vote for more bike lanes. 😁) I don’t want cities to be places where cars are the primary mode of transit and the others are afterthoughts, I want cars to be one of many viable options. I want to see parking lots reduced in favor of housing and businesses, and centralized parking garages emphasized.
As stated previously, these aren’t going to be immediate changes. They will take time, but they’re worth working toward for better and healthier cities (and a healthier planet).
Cities could be so much better, and we know this because there ARE cities that are better. It just takes effort and time.
And eminent domain, to take the land to build that infrastructure. And money. Lots and lots of money. And way more time than you think. Effectively having to level homes for miles, grade the surface and then, finally getting to build this utopian vision of public transportation, which will then need to be fed, sorry, maintained, by taxes that will shoot through the roof. Then, the displaced will need a place to stay, so enter yet more eminent domain to take more property to build vertical, because there is a finite amount of land. And this would be jn just one small to mid sized US city.
Look, I’m happy for anyone who’s happy in how they do their daily. You chose it, and it works for you. Some people don’t chose that life, and it doesn’t work for them. I respect your way of life, it should only be fair that you respect mine. I’m not driving a 3500 turbo diesel that gets 12 gallons to the mile, stomping on the gas “just because I like the sound” and throwing cheeseburger wrappers out the window.
Difference is, I’m not trying to force my way of life on others…
Of course I own a car, you need to own one to get anywhere where I live. That doesn't mean I have to support car infrastructure or be against public transit. I advocate for making public transit services more common and easier to use, and I would use public transit if my supported policies were implemented.
I honestly don’t get their argument. Yes, the current situation is bad and will necessitate using cars, but isn’t that the point of the post? That things could be better? That getting to the reality where cars are not as needed would be great? It’s such a strange attack against people who want better public transportation infrastructure.
Most of us aren’t arguing that a decrease in dependence on vehicles isn’t beneficial or worth the time. We’re tired of being implicitly blamed for just trying to exist in an established system. The very first words in this post are “STOP DRIVING CARS” like we have a choice or that would fix anything or that it’s our responsibility to upend how we live our life for “the cause”.
I’m not against public transit either. I was just wondering aloud how many are so vocally against cars due to not never really needing one anyway so far in their lives.
I used to visit fuck cars, back when I was on Reddit. I own two cars, and I look forward to a time when I only need them to tow a trailer and/or go on holiday
Places were not meant to be filmed, or cycled to, or taken a blimp or train to. Places just are places. There is no meaning. Who is upvoting these low quality memes?
Traffic engineering isn’t a university program and we’re still using studies from the 50’s to dictate our traffic engineering. It’s civil engineers in NA who are forced to follow outdated policy which maximizes for car traffic flow, regardless of body count or overall flow of poeple across all transit options. Generally, city planners are all for public transit and walkable and bike able cities but have to battle with politicians appealing to suburbanites with cars.
I don’t understand why this is such a hard thing for people and government to understand. Your car isn’t going to a place, you and the stuff you need to carry are. The car is just the means and there are many other means to do so, they just get a lot less attention and funding. Cars and traffic infrastructure have been subsidised for over a century now. Of course cars more developed, and of course we build our cities for cars, we’re socializing cars.
Yes, there are many areas that have been developed so car focused that it’s a necessity to own a car. People living in rural areas will always need personal cars. People in urban and suburban areas probably don’t and should give up their personal vehicles so Farmer can keep theirs.
Ok I’ll catch two buses and a train. Or three buses. I’ll only have to wake up at 5am everyday and go to bed at 9pm after returning home at 8:30. Totally viable.
Can’t sing along at the top of my lungs though, which is the only place I can because the walls of my apartment are too thin.
Driving to and from places is way more relaxing than being on transit imo. Transit has always been significantly more stressful for me and never lines up with when I need to use it.
For me it’s the other way around. Public transit is more relaxing since I can just sit down and relax and don’t have to deal with all these idiots that drive like they have to arrive at their destination half an hour ago.
I have an avarage travel of 45-55 minutes from my home city to the city I work in. By car and by train, while the train is usually on the slower end. It takes about 20-30 minutes to get from my home to the train station by taking the bus or riding the bike. When taking the bus I also have to factor in about 15 minutes between arrival at the station and departure of the train. Then there is another 20 minutes from the train station at destination to my place of work. So it takes me 40-65 minutes longer taking the train… twice a day, making it 1:20-2:10h a day (when Im lucky bc trains over here have frequent delays). One hour ish doesn’t sound like much? Well you’ll feel it if you working 11-12h a shift or a 9-10 hour a day in a normal 9 to 5 job (starting work at around 7 a.m.).
Then there is a neat little think called night or late shifts. There is no way I’m gonna take the train here. They either take an hour longer or the bus at my home city does not drive anymore on the way back.
Demand better public transportation. Demand functioning trains and frequent bus and tram connections. But do not tell people that need to take the car for whatever reason, that they should just take the worse option and make them feel like the problem.
I hate cars. I hate driving. And I love taking the train or taking the bike within my city. But sometimes I just have to take the car. That is not my fault tho, since public transportation is not the main focus of politics over here. And thats what needs to change globally.
I tried taking my family out on a weekend on transit. 40 minutes wait for a bus that had any room, an hour to travel 10km, and it cost us $10 each way for the family. I live in a major city but our transit is trash. It’s not fit for a city of this size.
I think you read that wrong. They aren’t saying public transit doesn’t work in a city that size, but the public transit in their city isn’t up to the standard it should be for a city that size.
That sounds horrible. Public transportation is such a vital thing for citys to function properly as a place to live and not just work in. And dont get me started on small towns or the countryside where not owning a car basically means you’re fucked. I cannot wrap my head around how politicians just fail to see this. Climate change might be the most urgent, but by far not the only argument for better public transportation.
When I switched from using the bus to going by bike, i cut my commute time by more than half. If I were to take the car, it would halve again. Public transport is great, and necessary. But it will never be faster than a personal car for anything but large distances.
A bike is faster in my city if you are decently fast, but a bus or trolley is faster than cars during rush hours, because we have public transit lanes, so while everyone in their tin cans is stressed yelling at the dumbass who just cut them off im breezing past, listening to a podcast, meditating or catching a quick ten minute nap before work.
… where you live. Where I live (in central Europe) we have a subway every 2-3 minutes and you’re at worst 2 blocks away from a stop. It all depends on the infrastructure. A subway cant be stuck in traffic…
Also, trams/streetcars in Zurich have right of way and the red lights change for them. Which is completely logical considering how many more people you can fit in them than a few cards at a red light. The problems with public transit in North America are a function of our car infrastructure.
Yep. Here in Berlin traveling to my old office (when I didn’t work from home all the time) with the S or U-bahn took 30-35 minutes and by car/taxi about 40-45 minutes due to the traffic.
Berlin is one of the few german cities where public transport is done right. In cologne, where I lived, there are a lot of stops, but the inferstructure is just realy bad. They managed that trains get stuck in traffic too sometimes. And for some reason they trains only arrive in a 10-30min time window. So if you want to follow one line it’s relatively fine, but if you have to change trains you have to be lucky. In the city center still faster than driving though.
I too live in central europe and the bus line i could take from my town to the town i work in takes 1 hr to get there and back, at the end of my day the bus only departes one hour after i’m finished with work so i have to wait for the bus the same amount of time i need for both ways with my car.
I’m in Vancouver, while the system needs some improvement, the skytrain gets me right to the airport, with trains every few minutes. No parking nonsense. Driving, with traffic, is much longer. Bussing has some express routes so the trips aren’t so many stops also. until the system wxpands develooment the consideration is looking for a place nearer a stop or station.
I think the point here is that suburbs and cities have such dogshit public transit and bike infrastructure that people do everything by car. Nobody is telling those who live in rural areas to bike 30km to get groceries.
It sure is nice that everyone gets to live in New York, London, and Washington.
A better solution is to reduce how much people need to travel. Instead of building trillion-dollartransit systems so people can to to the office we should be taxing the everloving shit out of office spaces for jobs that can be worked remotely.
Am from Germany and went to Nuremburg to visit a convention.
The public transit is night and day between those two places.
Only had to wait about <10min for the next bus.
I believe the accomodation is not very outside or inside of the transit serving area but it is surprising what a subway and a good schedule can do for one.
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