this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2023
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A lot. Because our infrastructure and zoning basically demand you buy a car. Thatβs not the point. The point is to advocate change through local government.
Wow I've never thought of that. Your thoughts are so insightful and original, if only I was as clever as you. Just make the government do stuff.
Iβm sure youβll get there. Just keep educating yourself.
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.
Cars are a form of personal transportation. Personal transportation is great, things like bikes and escooters can get people around very quickly. The problem with cars is that they go too fast, and they take up too much space.
It's a tragedy of the commons. Cars would be great if they were only used by professional drivers, didn't require parking, and were limited to how many could fit on the roads without causing traffic. (These are called busses and taxis)
All cities in the 60s and 70s were excited about cars. Even cities that would be considered "anti-car" nowadays, like NYC, Paris, and Amsterdam, were excited about cars and building massive highways. However, what most people realized, is that building enough parking, and building wide enough roads to handle all the cars is really hard (and in some cases, literally impossible). Residents realized that they didn't want any more of their city to be bulldozed for yet another highway or parking lot, and went fuckcars.
On top of that, this all happened before we understood the impacts of cars on climate change and mental health.
So yes, we built car-dependent places because it was convenient, and now we're de-carifying those places because it was a terrible decision.
People outside of your bubble largely enjoy cars.
People outside of your bubble largely dislike cars.
If you're trying to use Lemmy and Reddit as indicators of what people actually care about you will be repeatedly disappointed.
It is just as irrational for me to make the claim I made as you to make yours without evidence. Fortunately the arguments against car-dependent infrastructure planning go far beyond "we don't like 'em". The human and environmental benefits of walkable cities with robust public transit and the unsustainability of car-dependency speak for themselves. What other issue of political advocacy would "some people disagree" fly as a reasonable argument? The whole point of advocacy is to shift the tide of popular opinion enough to make material change
It's not "some" people though is it? You've just been in leftist online bubbles too long.
I've never once advocated against robust public transport. What I'm against is people taking it too far to the extreme and punishing car owners like the little eco fascists they are.
??? It is indeed "some" people lmao. Not all people, not no people, some people.
Ah I see, so you're against an imaginary straw man! Glad we got that sorted out.
You are a completely unserious contrarian and there is no point in talking to you.
I have plenty of friends and family in the us and Sweden who own cars. I dont know a single person who enjoys driving to work.
My point still stands, cars are nice for the first 10k people to drive, but they fucking suck for the other 40k+ people in your city.
I do. It's my sacred time to listen to some albums or a podcast, and to laugh at all the people catching COVID on the bus with all the single mothers, old people and unemployed.
well aren't you a peach
Your brain must be a marble.
A marvel my friend.
I'm not downvoting you btw, but it sounds like the problem here isn't that you like cars, but rather that you're a rural conservative who doesn't like interacting with lower classes.
Haha you couldn't be more wrong. I've never voted conservative in my life and I live in a city. Nice try though
You might not act on it because of the reality of where you live, but the key belief of conservatism is that there are real differences between human beings, which you expressed in your description of public transportation.
That distain for urban environments is also why conservatives tend to live in rural areas, agreeing with statements like, "I want a big house with a yard", and disagreeing with statements like "I want to live in a diverse city with lots of new restaurants".
From a Swedish perspective, people with those beliefs would prefer socially conservative parties like the Swedish Democrats or the Social Democrats, than parties like the Left Party, Green Party, or Center Party, regardless of your views on economic policy.
There's nothing wrong with being conservative and wanting to live a rural lifestyle, everybody is different. The point of the fuckcars movement is to allow for people to live without a car at the same living standards as people with cars. That means reducing the number of cars driving into cities and making sure that biking and walking isn't deprioritized in favor of cars.
Yep most car owners whose cars are not unreliable pieces of shit do enjoy their cars. I've been careful over the years to only buy cars that I would enjoy driving and owning. Zero regrets about any of my 5 car purchases. I only sometimes regret selling a couple of them.
The infrastructure came first. It was specifically lobbied for to force people to buy cars.
You canβt take the train before the tracks are laid down.
Go to Europe my friend. You can go from Madrid to Barcelona for $30 on a train that goes over 300 km/h.
I am in Europe.
Where? Have you tried going outside?
The UK. Trains are expensive as shit and terrible. Still better than the US but not viable for me right now
Ah, well thank neoliberal privatization for that. Thatcher and Reagan fucked their respective countries so damn hard to the benefit of their wealthy friends.
I'm all for nationalising the rails, still wouldn't catch the train unless they built a station right outside my house that goes straight to work.
Oh we're talking about developed countries but I understand the confusion.
Yes, xenophobia is an excellent debate tactic.
Oh I don't hate you, I'm saying that your country has replaced development with neoliberals.
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.
Keyword: were (past tense). Too bad it was all thrown away...
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.
The car industry lobbies to tear up public infrastructure, dingus.