FuckCars

427 readers
1 users here now

A community for discussions of how cars have ruined many cities across the globe, as well as alternatives to them.

Cars are deeply tied to capitalism, and in resisting capitalism, it is worthwhile to reconsider personal automobiles place in transportation.

Rules: (wip: message me if I’m missing something)

Be nice to people: This is fuck cars, not fuck drivers. Yes some drivers are car-brained maniacs, no that doesn’t mean they’re evil (usually).

No hate or bigotry: No racism, homophobia, sexism, terfs, ableism, etc. Not the move generally. Cars have already destroyed enough marginalised communities, no need for us to help them.

No traffic violence: Do not post depictions of traffic violence. NSFW or NSFL posts are not allowed. Gawking at crashes is not allowed. Be respectful to people who are a victim of traffic violence or otherwise traumatized by it. News articles about crashes and statistics about traffic violence are allowed. Glorifying traffic violence will get you banned.

No misinformation: Masks and vaccines save lives during a pandemic, climate change is real and anthropogenic - and denial of these and other established facts will get you banned. False or highly speculative titles will get your post deleted.

No harassment: Posts that (may) cause harassment, dogpiling or brigading, intentionally or not, will be removed. Please do not post screenshots containing uncensored usernames. Actual harassment, dogpiling or brigading is a bannable offence.

Please report posts and comments that violate our rules.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
1
1
Intro post (lemmygrad.ml)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 

Tried to post this yesterday, but lemmygrad was getting stuck on a bus in traffic with no BRT. I was a big fan of FuckCars on the other site, I wanted to create that community here. There's also a lot of intersection of resisting capitalism and cars. Cars a prime example of capitalism extracting wealth from the working class and trapping them in wage slavery to maintain it.

Cars were popularized by Henry Ford, famous for being a good friend of Nazis. They kill thousands of people directly by collisions, and are a huge factor in killing everyone via emissions and climate change. Even EVs pollute either at a power plant, or the tires they use emitting particulate on the roads. Mining the required lithium to make every car electric would be incredibly extractive and difficult. They take up huge amounts of space to transport on average 1.3 people. Communities have been needlessly bulldozed to put up highways, and are then divided by them, causing more alienation and less community building. Cars also restrict mobility to those who can drive, both physically and monetarily. Someone without good eyesight or motor control is unable to drive, and that means it can be difficult or impossible to get around in car-centric cities.

On the other hand, we have human-centric cities. Look at China pumping out high speed rail while America plays in the mud. Anyone who can move can ride a good bus or train. You see people face-to-face on a train, making you interact and grow community. Public transit is often more affordable than a car, and can be made free (really should be). Trains are miles ahead on efficiency compared to electric cars even, and trains can be much more easily electrified without need for a massive battery. Bikes can be used to close the gap from a train to a final destination, or all by themselves for medium range journeys. Get an ebike and you can even further extend how far you can ride, for a fraction of the resources, monetarily, space, and environmentally, of an electric vehicle.

Down with cars, down with capitalism, solidarity to everyone on transit and foot, and extra solidarity to those forced into car ownership against their will.

2
3
4
 
 

In response to the question asked about calling the police for possible robbery when hearing the car alarm, about just 0.3 % of the respondents answered always call police and about 9% sometimes call the police while more than 90% of them have never ever taken any action. It can be explained by this fact; many people have learned that automobile theft alarms are often false. Therefore, when they hear one, they may disregard it because they have mentally conceptualized the automobile theft alarm stimulus as unreliable (Bliss et al., 2007; Hazalbaker, 1997).

The third question has been about the respondents’ reaction while hearing the car alarm; the collected answers were divided to 9 categories. The results are shown in table 1. The next question was about the real efficiency of car alarms in robbery prevention including none, low, medium, high and very high options, the results are summarized in Figure 2.

More than 75% of the responds, when asking if car alarm has ever interfered with the ability to sleep, was “Yes”. Beside that about 84% of the respondents have problem with its interference while studying at home or in the school (Figure 3). At an elementary school in Inwood, similar findings indicated that children in the noisier side of a school were 3 to 4 months behind in reading comprehension than children in quieter ones (Bronzaft and McCarthy, 1975).

[…]

As it arises from the questionnaires, about 66% of respondents are faced with car alarm sirens more than 3 times a day which is beyond their mental and physical bearing capacity, concerning the nature of the noise. It interferes with the ability of 76% to sleep and with the ability of 84% to study at school or home, particularly significant because they are students. The rated noise annoyance was on average 6.2 which is well above moderate.

It should also be mentioned that car alarms are especially harmful for two reasons. First, their variable noise can’t be “tuned out” as easily as steady sounds. Second, many new car alarms exceed 125 decibels (dBA). This is louder than the sound of a jet airplane taking off 200 feet away. Alarms erode the sense of neighborliness and mutual respect necessary for life in densely‐populated cities (Friedman et al., 2003).

On the other hand, just 3% of the respondents call police upon hearing the car alarm and 97% face it with fortitude, anger, no concentration and calmness, inconvenience, horror and stress (75%) and objection, seeking for the reason, worry about any possible incident (22%). It seems that the most important reason for taking no action is due to no belief in car alarms effectiveness as it is shown in figure(2) that just one‐third (36%) of the people believe that it has high and very high efficiency in car theft prevention.

Similar findings are reported in VTPI (2009); the authors stated that car alarms are not very effective at preventing thefts: most alarms are false and cars with alarms are just as likely to be broken into those without.

(Emphasis added.)

I’ve hated car alarms ever since I was little. I still remember that night when I was staying at a hotel and I obliviously pressed a car alarm button, forcing my uncle to run outside to turn it off, and waking up my grandfather, who got up to stare at me for a few dozen seconds before he returned to bed. I was embarrassed.

Several days ago there was an incident in my house where I was waiting in the garage for somebody and the car alarm suddenly exploded without warning. My driver had accidentally pushed the car alarm button when she was opening the door, and I was so exhausted—almost traumatized—from the incident that I hardly said anything that day and I stayed home the next.

5
 
 
6
7
 
 

BEIJING, Sept. 1 (Xinhua) -- China's 62-day summer travel season has concluded, with the railways handling a record 887 million passenger trips between July 1 and Aug. 31, up 6.7 percent year on year, China State Railway Group Co., Ltd. (China Railway) said Sunday.

During the period, the daily average number of passenger trips handled by the country's railways was 14.31 million, according to the company.

TRAINS are the Best!

8
 
 
9
 
 
10
 
 

Wikipedia article on the new tunnelKaisantunneli (Swedish: Kajsatunneln) is a tunnel for bicycle and pedestrian use in central Helsinki, Finland, serving as the main east-west cycling thoroughfare in the city centre.

The tunnel is located directly underneath the Central Station, and joins the city's eastern and western cycling routes, cutting previous travel distance around the station by up to 600 metres (2,000 ft) and avoiding several sets of traffic lights, as well as removing much of the cycle traffic from the busy Kaivokatu street. Its western end connects directly to the Baana cycle path.

The width of the tunnel is split roughly 50:50 between pedestrian and cycling lanes. The tunnel allows direct access to the station platforms, and connects with the separate pedestrian-only tunnel under the station. Additional cycle park for 900 bikes, as well as bike servicing facilities, will be opened in the tunnel later.

Construction of the tunnel began in spring 2021 and was expected to be complete in autumn 2023, but in the end the tunnel opened to the public on 4 May 2024. The construction was especially challenging, on account of some old masonry and timber support structures underpinning the station, which were only discovered after construction had already begun. The construction cost c. EUR 33m, with the final figure exceeding the budget by some EUR 10m.

The tunnel is expected to be used by up to 10,000 cyclists daily.

Wikipedia

11
 
 
12
 
 
13
 
 
14
0
submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 
15
 
 

[Photo credits: Not Just Bikes]

16
0
submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 
17
 
 
18
 
 

Location -> West End Cincinnati. Both photos from same location and angle.

19
 
 
20
 
 
21
 
 
22
0
Eee (lemmygrad.ml)
submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 
23
0
submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 

94 is built through a former prominent African American neighborhood.

After seeing similar pics, it is incredible how nasty white supremacy can be if you look at how cities in the USA where changed after the 60s.

Also, the Cathedral of St Paul is outlined as a reference.

24
 
 

YouTube user Drew Gooden made a great video and rant about regressions in modern car design from his perspective as a driver, with a large portion of the time dedicated to our favorite abomination: the Cybertruck. He also touches on those fucking brighter-than-daylight headlights that have been proliferating for several years now which anyone here, forced to own and drive a car to maintain the most basic existence, likely has seen in person.

Alternate Invidious link

25
 
 

Context -> This is in the western suburbs of Sydney, Australia. The family turned down an offer of $50 million from property developers.

Also, not a single shop, daycare, school, mall, community center, public park or hospital in a 10 km radius.

It is awful.

view more: next ›