Fuck Cars
A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!
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Or people whose transit patterns would overlap.
The car also has huge disadvantages, though. It depends heavily on petrol and a shitton of energy, costing you a lot. It costs more and can break down easier than a good bicycle (cos there are more points of failure). And you also need to find parking spots and keep focusing on the traffic around you (unlike with public transit).
Also, tandem and longtail bicycles exist - those can carry multiple people. The bicycle can be driven in any weather as well, you just need appropriate clothing.
Just as roads are salted for cars, so too can they be for bicycles -- and bicycle pathes are thinner and need less salt, thus making it more energy efficent.
The big issue here is up-front costs vs distance-dependant costs.
A car costs a boatload of money up-front, while very little of that cost is distance-dependent. Depreciation, tax, maintenance, all that isn't paid when you take a trip to the city centre. You pay all that up-front or on a fixed schedule, and the only thing you pay semi-frequently is fuel, and even that isn't paid on every trip. So while it's super expensive, it doesn't feel super expensive.
Public transit on the other hand is often paid per trip, and then you see the total cost of that trip and it feels super expensive.
If you want to get people off cars, you need to provide a solution where they don't need to own a car. Because if you own a car, using it isn't all that expensive any more.
That's why all forms of alternatives need to work together nicely:
If one or more of these parts isn't working, then people will still own cars, because not all of their use cases are covered. And if people own cars, then they will use them.
And you focus solely on the inner city to inner city traffic. Which only makes up a certain segment of the overall traffic. As long as your start or destination is outside the city, bikes and public transport (in it's current form) won't cut it.
I have done quite a lot of kilometers by bike (For some time I did 350km commute per week on the bike!), and I can tell you with certainty that there is weather for which you won't find appropriate clothing, at least not for such distances.
Do you really expect me to somehow put my handicapped wife on a tandem and drive 20+km (one direction) to a medical appointment in the city this afternoon, just to appease some peoples car hate?
This is a very american thinking. Public transport do and often reach out to destination outside the city in other country, you just really need to solve the last miles. Having frequent train that goes from city to a few station in the suburb, and then have feeder bus to serve as a last mile solution is often done in places with okay to good public transport. The station often have parking space for car, motorcycle, and in place with good bicycle infrastructure, a bicycle parking.
This not only help people who prefer not to drive and face the traffic in the city, it also help people whose car and motorcycle needed a repair that can take a long time to do*, and also people who can't afford car or motorcycle, or those have their license temporarily revoked. It's called park and ride, and iirc some american city have this at one point.
No we don't expect you to do that, but we do expect you to allow it to happen so it can help other. It's really not about you or your wife.
If you want to have your mind change, do check out some of the Not Just Bikes video, particularly this one, it did change my perspective.
*note: i know this because i'm a mechanic in a city with horrible public transport. Often time, when someone's car broke down, they're basically stranded with no transport to go to work or do literally everything, so more often than not, the repair have to be delayed. I also often visit the capital city of my country with somewhat good public transport, multiple train line that serve millions per day, and people tend to have easier time moving around, even between city and small town within that state. Not owning a car there is also a thing.
I am European. Public transport that sucks is not a US exclusive.
Your pro arguments solely apply to the inner city transport, where I already agreed that this is absolutely OK.
Leave the inner city, where bus services drop to once an hour during the rush hours and less outside, and a car quickly gets unavoidable, despite all the car-free world fantasies of some.
I said american thinking, not american problem.
Not really, that's why i provide solution, and i never demand it to be car free, because it's unavoidable. Do give my comment another read, i mentioned car parking at the station, bus and bicycle as an alternative last mile solution for people who prefer that. Also your perspective really just based on now, not how it can be.
I too live in a country with horrible public transport, and i have to drive 24km to work, yet i can imagine a world where this is possible. It's really just about perspective.
Except that I frequently use bicycles and public transit outside the city.
I think that's a pathetic excuse to justify a carcel mentality.
Eh, I did similar commutes and that's not a problem. Even if the distance is an issue, there's always an electric bicycle.
I expect people to bend their regional lack of good public transit and bicycle pathes, into a fostering of it, rather than turning into a criticless, soulless cynical praise of a vehicle of pollution and danger. When we face situations as yours, should the answer not be to deflect criticism of the car, but to support bicycle paths and public transit being common and affordable, even in sparse areas?
There are disability-friendly bicycles, ranging from wheelchair bicycles to riksha-like ones, and laying bicycles, and so on. Electric as well, if needed. Did you assume I wouldn't be aware of these options?
Nice strawman, assuming I'm young when you don't know how old I am. Maybe you could try ceasing to invent excuses for not bicycling and using public transit, and instead foster support of both?
Don't you care for your wife? Oh, now you say you need it... but some of these bicycles I mentioned are of the types that your wife could use yourself. Also, yes, it's cheaper. A car might cost €10k per year (petrol, maintenance, paying off loan, etc...) while the handicapped bicycle cost you €3k in total, if not free if you can get it subsidised. Maybe you are part of the problem thinking you're part of the "oh my glorious car" minority? It is hard, but you must face it: that your mindset IS part of the problem.
Frankly, it's more and more clear that you actually haven't gotten the faintest of how cars ruin lives, and are trying to cope inventing excuses to not improve your own life and that of others. Either you support good and affordable public transit + bicycle paths everywhere, or go commit some actual research and actually trying it, instead of lamenting and doing nothing.
If you think you can bike in any weather, you haven't biked enough 😅. There's absolutely limits. Regardless, you don't need to carry a change of clothes when you use your car.
Fuel costs are only that significant in ICE cars. And unless cities stop supporting cars, parking is not a problem.
I now live in a city where lots of people bike even throughout winter. It's simply the most convenient way to move around short distances.
Shrug. I've bicycled in snowy weather, heavy rain, heat waves, days without light, and so on. I think there's absolutely something like a "skill issue" there. I bicycle everyday.
I don't change clothes either when I bicycle.
And no, fuel costs are pretty much significant in every car. I paid €200 on bicycle maintenance over ... 10 years.
If you drive by car you'll easily pay quadruple that within a year.
And yes, car parking is a problem. It takes up a lot of space. Look at Houston's 44% space being used by parking spaces and tell me that that's not a problem. It absolutely is. The parking IS part of the urban sprawl problem.
In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it isn't a lack of "supporting cars" that creates a problem of parking -- it's the opposite, in fact: it's the nigh-weaponised dangerous support for cars that creates the problem for people.
Frankly, I think it's weak if one only ever can drive by car. Walk, bicycle, and use public transit - now that's real independence.
Then you’re probably not working in a job that has decent dress standards, or your coworkers hate that you smell.
Yes, but conditions outside the limits for a bike are also generally unsafe to drive in. It's lovely to ride on studded tyres past a line of cars that have slid into a snowbank.
You don't need to carry a change of clothes on a bike often, but if you do, clothes are usually light and we have suit carriers, shirt shuttles and so on. Some of which are also used to carry a change of clothes in cars.
Some people, mostly anglophone, like to play spandex dress-up for cycling or sprint lots, but that's a choice, not a necessity.
My change of clothes is because during winter I get all sweaty by the time I get to work, nit because I like to cosplay Tour De France.
Wear less, wear better, or ride gentler, unless you're one of the (unknown size) minority that can't ride on a cold day without sweating.
Hah, or seen enough weather. Even 40kph winds can be enough to make me think twice.
Or enough rain and snow that you can't see more than a meter ahead.
Ski goggles exist. Again, literal skill issue.
Absolutely. I remember being seriously delayed by weather that made even me to seek cover. Biking through open fields during a thunderstorm is something which I leave to idiots claiming they can bike in every weather. I prefer staying under a bridge or other dry and safe place until the storm passes.