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Yes. I've been saying for years that electric cars and self driving cars are solving the wrong problem. The problem is if I need a car to get groceries. The problem is I'm not safe on the street because of all the cars.
People who have never lived someplace that doesn't need a car are very eager to tell you how it won't work, though.
The roads here are so wide (usually 6 lanes plus turn lanes and a median) that we could build wall2wall apartments/condos/flats on on half of the road and still have enough road left for 3-4 lanes of traffic and a detached dedicated bike path and sidewalks.
Cars take up way more space than people realize.
streets like these really make you feel it in your bones, everything feels comfortable and spacious with like 500 people on the same street until 5 cars show up and suddenly there's a fucking traffic jam out of nowhere.
As an electric car owner, I completely agree. We were lucky enough to go from 2 cars to 1, but still not enough transit to go to zero
Electric cars are built to save the car as a mode of individual transportation. they are not built to save the environment
Public Transport for the win!
I wish we had it in my area!
Public transport is awesome for cities but for rural areas it doesn't suffice
OK but most people live in cities so we can just fix that problem first.
Don’t you know? You have to fix every problem all at once or you shouldn’t even try. It’s the same reason we shouldn’t bother with renewables.
/s
Yes that's true but the focus should really be on mass implementing it in cities and not on trying to force it on rural areas.
Public transport is awesome for high density population areas but a bus with 4 people in it might as well have been a car.
Except it does. It's not "cost effective" but can still be done.
Ebikes and/or electric cars are a much better solution for rural areas.
Disagree strongly
I life in a rural area, I use public transport.
Of course, because EVs do not address the problem and just do a misdirection.
The problem is publicly subsidised private vehicles.
I got tired of waiting for EVs to become affordable and got an e-bike instead. I still drive at times when the bike doesn't cut it for various reasons. And now my car is getting super old and in need of replacement, but I'm not sure what to do?
EVs sound ideal, but the usual logic that the higher upfront cost will come back to you in fuel savings feels less compelling in my situation. Otoh another gas guzzler? One thing I can say is I don't see myself ever buying new again. It's just not worth it for how little I drive. I guess I'll leave EV/hybrid/conventional debate up to what's available on the used market.
If you barely use your car, you might not even need it anymore. Perhaps a taxi/rental/car pooling might meet the few times you still take it out of the garage? Specially when you put the numbers down and see how expensive it is to maintain a car
You have a point. My brother gets by fine now without owning his own wheels. And my grownup kids don't even have drivers licences.
I guess where my situation differs is that they live in big cities compared to me with all sorts of options for getting around. Also, I'm a part-time musician with a lot of gear I have to transport to gigs, particularly if I'm running sound.
Would you consider something like the Bestune Pony to be affordable? It retails for the equivalent of 8000 euros after 15 VAT. I am seeing it moreal and more and I live in a place where petrol is 0.50 euro a liter.
Well my wife is certainly fawning over it when I showed her photos!
So unfortunately in North America, there is a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs which, oddly enough, predates Trump. In Canada specifically, they are easing this somewhat so that 49,000 will be allowed in every year before the tariff kicks in. (That number apparently reflects EV sales before the tariff was implemented.)
But yes, I would definitely consider something like that if I could actually find one here.
I wish we had those here in the US!
When I was growing up, I was a sci-fi nerd. I loved the idea of cool little electric cars. But the ones I'm seeing around here are huge. We're also learning that even electric cars are fucking up the environment.
What I didn't imagine is electric bikes and scooters. So that's been a cool thing (I have both), but it has downsides too.
I volunteer at a local hospital, and we've seen a huge uptick of injuries from people riding electric scooters and bikes. The reason is that more people are on them, but our infrastructure in my city doesn't support them very well. So people are having to ride on busted sidewalks, roads with no bike lane, etc. So a lot of people crashing them (and not wearing a helmet).
So I think the only we can really reduce car usage is to make the city unfriendly to cars. But that ain't gonna happen here anytime soon. A strip of road near me actually was finally updated with a pretty wide bike lane last month because it's close to a school, but holy shit, people in my neighborhood are still bitching about how we didn't need it and it was a waste of resources. smh
The pigs around me like to steal ebikes.
Of course they call it """"impounding"""" but really it's just legalized theft. Fucking piss buckets.
It always annoys me when people act like the e-mobility doodads are the unsafe thing, rather than the hostile infrastructure and giant speeding death boxes that surround them.
1.3m people die from car accidents globally every year... silence. One kid knocks over grandma on his escooter... RAAAAGGGEE
Exactly this! Scoot on a nice smooth safe street or sidewalk is pretty safe if you don't go crazy fast. But add in cars all around you, fucked up sidewalks, etc... it can be a fucking dangerzone every day
I see news talking about some kid on an ebike getting obliterated by an F-950 Child Mutilator Extreme Ranch Lariat and then the newscasters going, "ebikes are so dangerous for children!"
Electric bikes and scooters still fuck up the environment.
What we actually need are fewer humans, not necessarily less technology.
you first
So, the fewer humans argument is popular in countries with a low population density, or generally in the first world where populations have peaked and are projected to decline if they are not doing so already. I'm in Canada. It's a big talking point here.
When you study demographics, though, you start getting a different picture. 1st worlders have a HUGE per capita resource footprint compared to 3rd worlders. Like 10x or more. Our 40 million punches like 400 million in the developing world, which is not something to be proud of.
The point I'm trying to make is that anything we do in wealthier countries that reduces per capita consumption has an outsized effect globally. A car is over 10x more massive than a bike, and the costs reflect that however you measure it, be it in energy, manufacturing, infrastructure, etc.
more trains and busses
The big problem with this transition is not whether we need fewer cars but that modern cities are not designed for alternatives. Any near term solution has to include EVs. It’s going to take a large redesign and investment at a time we can’t wait while we need to electrify everything.
Modern US cities.
Modern Australian cities too.
ironically australia is generally a great example of how easily american cities could unfuck themselves by just running trains on the railways they already have and building apartments near the train stations.
Like yeah brisbane isn't a paradise by any stretch, but remarkably it's not an endless hellscape of highways and single family houses! You can get a train to the airport! There's an actual downtown rather than a sea of parking lots with 7 shops!
It’s the suburban sprawl that is driving the car based transport. Suburbs are established further away with no proper infrastructure, shops and facilities. Cars are the only way to get about as everything is so hard to get to. Extending freeways to them doesn’t help as the commute time is lowest in a car.
~~But 1) apartments don't tend to be built in suburban sprawl, and 2) even the worst suburban sprawl in europe is still generally bikeable, there'll be a lidl or something within a reasonable distance.~~
Got this thread mixed up with another, similar one. Ignore this reply lol.
I was passing through the back blocks of Sydney, new suburbs that are a long way from anywhere. If you want to go anywhere it’s by car.
Infill of the inner areas especially around railways is happening which is great but the sprawl continues.
~~but are poor people really living in the suburban sprawl? I'm not debating whether the sprawl forces you to drive, my point is that suburbs are for rich people.~~
i just realized this is not the thread i thought it was, whoops