Also, the ideology I agree with but I swear these “memes” are made by the deranged. It’s the kind of handwritten scrawl you expect to see taped to lampposts by the guy who wanders around with empty tincans cellotaped to his patchwork hat
People responding to the meme that needing cars isn’t evil, and is required for many areas, are missing the point of the meme.
The meme is complaining about areas we built that can exist as they are only if everyone owns a car. If we weren’t so consumerist, and if white people could better tolerate living near black people, we wouldn’t have so much of the population living in suburban areas where cars are so necessary. A lot more people would live in circumstances where public transport is more viable for them.
And, of course, some shade thrown at the car buyers who buy comsumptively-extreme cars to do piddling stuff in. The number of basic sedans that can be had with 200+hp engines, or F150 pickups with massive gas-guzzling engines, that only get used for surface road driving one or two people around, is pretty ridiculous.
The main wrong thing about the meme is that it’s assuming our situation was created specifically so that evil corporations could sell cars and gas… no, they’re profiting from, and exacerbating, the problem of white flight from cities. Most of the country’s problems come in large part from racism first, and then profiteering on top of that.
Trains are good for short distances, like going to work.
When you compare trains to planes, why would you take a train for a long distance journey? It takes much longer to get there and it’s also more expensive.
"I would love to live here"photo looks like a typical suburb - with a population density that is at a level where everyone still needs to own a car. I’m thinking European cities like Bern. Most people don’t need one to get to work but basically every household still needs one for non-work use.
Car-free population density should be more like minor Japanese cities (like Kanazawa, etc), or old towns in Europe (downtown Bordeaux).
Says who? Is there some natural law when the universe was created that said mankind are not allowed to drive?
YEARS OF BUILDING CAR INFRASTRUCTURE yet NO DECREASE IN OVERALL TRAVEL TIME
Ok you go and set off on foot on a 200km journey, and a car sets off at the same time to get to the same place, who will get there first?
Want to go somewhere fast? We have a vehicle for that; It’s called a “TRAIN”
Trains are great at moving people / goods between urban areas, but are awful (obviously) for point-to-point journeys. Want to the doctors fast? Can’t exactly get on the the train directly outside your house to the front door of the doctors. I like trains, I use them where I can and always use them whenever I go into the office, but you cannot seriously suggest using trains to totally replace cars, it’s so ridiculous that I’d swear you’ve never even seen one.
“i am DRIVING my…”
Not sure what’s deranged about it? In fact that case is very valid as you’re likely to have a lot of shopping (two weeks worth) that you’d really struggle to carry on public transport. It might have a bit more authenticity if you said it was just to get some bread and milk.
I get the sentiment, we should totally be trying to reduce our car usage and planning our urban environments to favour walking, cycling and public transport, but the fuckcars community on here are totally deranged. Your arguments look ridiculous and aren’t going to convince anyone.
There does seem to be a high proportion of city dwellers wondering why somebody who lives four miles from the nearest shop that sells something more substantial than Budweiser and crisps would need a car…
Was there ever any doubt that people who dislike cars live in walkable cities? They can’t conceive that someone could live in another place that doesn’t have the same infrastructure they do. The idea of being out in the middle of nowhere with 40 acres of land doesn’t even cross their minds because to them everyone lives in an urban environment or should be able to make the same solutions work.
It’s also weird that they classify getting groceries for two weeks as strange, like do you guys not have natural disasters? You just buy groceries for the next day? What do you do when the shelves go bare during things like Covid or a hurricane? I guess you turn into looters, since you apparently think planning for anything beyond the next day is “deranged.” God forbid someone has some extra rice and beans to get through a period of logistics failure.
Cool lemme just build a train really quick to my work, great idea
Like I get what this is saying and all, and I will vote for anyone who supports this kind of thing, but telling me not to drive my car is not the solution.
I love how people just come up with this shit with their knowledge of their local area. Any train here requires driving to, and does not come and go frequently, and takes longer. Our infra is terrible.
On the flip side, some places have awesome infra and I wish I had that. I’d prefer to pedal bike if I could. But where I’m at you’re very likely to be killed without bike lanes or sidewalks, and it would take hours to get anywhere important - IE work.
This person has a point though. Typically most people can’t even afford to live where I live, and most of the jobs are 50Km away. The nearest bus stop is an hour and a half walk. Biking is dangerous since there are ditches and no sidewalks on either side and people typically drive 90Km/hr.
And when you get to the bus loop, buses come every hour. Takes 3 transfers before you get to a train. Then you take a train to a bus. Then more walking.
It’s 2.5 hours each way if you bike. 3.5 hours each way if you walk to the bus stop.
If it snows, it’s a crapshoot. Sometimes the trains cease to function. Longest one way commute I’ve had on transit was 7 hours.
I think some people just need to realize not everywhere is like Amsterdam and has a wicked bike lane and transit setup.
Honestly, what were you expecting? There just can’t be any Utopic website or group that won’t fight at all. People moved over to Lemmy because they hated Spez’ decisions, not because they were these mythical, superior moral beings that only help others out of selfless reasons. Sure we all have values and principles but that does not excuse us of our faults.
Point proven. I was just stating my opinion and people feel like they need to dogpile, despite the fact they actually agree with what I’m fucking saying.
In the UK in the 1960s the Government fabricated “evidence” about train use so they could cut about 70% of the railways and sell the land on. It was known as the Beeching Report iirc.
Lol yeah, who would want their own personal vehicle they can use to go where they want and on what route they want without having to share with total strangers who can and will hurt you when you can ride the filthy, bedbug-ridden, urine-soaked train next to the crazy homeless guy jacking off right in front of you?
You’re not going to sway anyone into giving up their autonomy just because you don’t like the way they live. If you’re so butthurt about it, why wouldn’t you just band together with the other NPCs, put a pot of money together, buy a shitload of land out in the boonies, incorporate it into a separate county and just build a walkable city of your own?
But you won’t, because you’re too lazy, selfish, and lack initiative, and that’s why you’ll never get the world you want.
You know the issues you’re bringing up aren’t caused by public transit, right? You’re so emotional over this and tear down the idea of public transit instead of giving a shit about mental healthcare in your country.
So now neither issue is solved, interesting perspective. You ever consider that traffic might be better for people like you who are deathly afraid of interacting with others if more people use public transportation?
Because no one’s talked about forcing you on a bus or flatly banning the existence of cars. You’re latching onto a hyper exaggerated scenario so you can act hysterical while feeling justified. You aren’t, you just have a small mind that’s easily manipulated into being against your own best interests.
As it stands now everyone needs to invest thousands of dollars to acquire and maintain something that is essentially required to participate in modern society. If you like doing that then more power to you, but everyone else just wants to have a choice.
No, they do, you just didn’t read the article and you don’t care to because the only one getting emotional about this – and trying once again to derail the conversation because you think this about winning – is you.
You are never going to solve sexism and you certainly can’t do it overnight, and if I can’t convince you to put your feelings to the side and stick only to facts in a simple forum conversation, how the hell do you think people are going to undo millennia of toxic sexist ideas in time to implement car bans and avoid needlessly jeopardizing other people?
That’s right, you won’t, because ultimately, you don’t care about the safety or well-being of others. You just want to get rid of eyesores.
total strangers who can and will hurt you when you can ride the filthy, bedbug-ridden, urine-soaked train next to the crazy homeless guy jacking off right in front of you?
What post-apocalyptic hellscape do you live in? And here I was, thinking I live in a third-world country.
I live in a major city and frequently travel by bus and metro. I go to my hometown once a month or so, by train. Haven’t experienced these horrors (yet).
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.
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