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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In the absence of a flair system on lemmy yet, let’s try to make it easier to scan through posts by type in here by using tags:
Public transportation should be provided for the public by the public. Quit wasting time with ticket booths and all that shit. Just free transportation. We aren’t charged per use for roads so people drive. Make public transport free so transportation is equally accessible by all social classes.
Even with cheap fares now, moving a family is still more expensive by bus than vehicle. I don’t drive for my sake. I drive for the others that need me to drive for them.
For me the only answer is good, fast, cheap public transit.
Gosh I took the railroad from Long Island, NY into NYC and back. Each way was about 40 min but the total cost was like $19 per person! If I was going with 3/4 friends, it could literally be cheaper and about as fast to drive into the city and pay for parking. It needs to be more subsidized.
Car driving also needs to be less subsidised.
don't discourage people from owning personal cars. most of the time this mentality is just a tax on the poor.
Flip the idea. Encourage people to not use cars instead.
it's all about spending money and effort in the areas you want it. Not about being restrictive.
it's a slower method of conversion, but more effective.
People are in engrained car habits. That's why alternatives to driving are important, but people are unlikely to switch unless we ALSO make driving less appealing
This is why a culture war is forming between bikers and drivers.
It's not just reallocation of resources, you are actively plotting to disrupt a means of income, safety, or accessibility for the majority.
Biking and public transit are very valid modes of transportation and for some journeys, practical. News flash, I use them too. The same goes for vehicles.
What isn't necessary for you, may be for someone else. That's a fact lots of folks here don't want to acknowledge.
So to answer your question, make something better, faster, cheaper than cars and people will come. But if your recipe for success is making a working system suck bad enough public transport looks good, everybody loses.
I don't have a massive truck and my 20yo Honda is no status symbol, but I love the act of driving and the skills I've developed over my lifetime. It's freeing, relaxing, and I find a meditative quality and peace when I drive in the mountains. You want to take that away. Now imagine if bikes were taxed and licensed... Not so fun now.
We have to work together in a community. I'm tired of fractions picking fights.
You want to discourage people from buying cars? Then don't buy one. Be the example you seek. But for heavens sake, don't be a jerk to others.
It's freeing, relaxing, and I find a meditative quality and peace when I drive in the mountains. You want to take that away.
We literally don't. No-one is out to stop you from driving as a hobby.
We're specifically out to make that the only reason anyone needs to drive.
What would be the best ways to discourage people from owning personal cars?
We literally don't. No-one is out to stop you from driving as a hobby.
Um, yes?
You're arguing here for continuing to prop up sprawl, is what it sounds like. You're open to moving people away from car dependency, but not from suburbs, is my impression. I would love to be wrong about this, so please feel free to assure me you're not proposing that people just live wherever the hell they want, no matter how unsustainable it might be.
There are times and places for high density cities, and there are times and places for rural living. There is no one-size-fits-all approach here.
Today, I made a makeshift bahn mi burger for dinner. I snagged a French roll and a carrot from the store. I bbq'd a steak burger with Vietnamese marinade and added cucumber, Thai basil, mint, and cilantro that I grew in my garden. Also slapped together a quick salad with tomatoes, peas, and more cucumber also from my garden.
My hobbies are hiking, camping, and backpacking. Right now, I am sitting under two absolutely massive 10' sunflowers watching my pet turtle bury a clutch of eggs.
You have this impression I'm somesort of eco-terrorist because I like to drive. I know sustainable, I love to grow my own food, I'm aware of my footprint.
But I am all for sprawl and not because I drive. I rent so this will all go away someday because I can't afford to buy a $1.2 million 2-bedroom starter home or a high density concrete box.
So yeah, my choices are the fringes. Public transport (and bicycling) are going to be sketchy.
My job up until last year was home repair (not going to get too specific because this is the internet) and I did need a truck full of tools. That was my employment; my income.
Changing city policies harmed blue collar workers like me making it difficult to travel between worksites. Every major road to my residence has engineered in congestion as a means of traffic control whether it was appropriate or not. Time is money and being unable to fill one or two appointments daily due to lost time was devastating.
I have a local public transit card I use. It's great for going to popular destinations like sports, restaurants, and zoos. It is not great to visit friends and family. For that, I use a car (plus I almost always have a passenger) and save money and time.
I love the act of driving and the skills I’ve developed over my lifetime. It’s freeing, relaxing, and I find a meditative quality and peace when I drive in the mountains.
I like walking in nature but in my country you can't escape the sound of distant cars. I'm sure it's not you, you're definitely the exception and a model citizen, but your hobby is giving me tinnitus and is infringing upon mine. It's not a culture war, it's just shit that's bad for us all vs shit that's not bad for us all and you really like doing the shit that's bad for us all so you have this strange cognitive dissonance about it where you can totally admit it's bad but refuse to stop doing it.
You want to discourage people from buying cars? Then don’t buy one. Be the example you seek.
I've never owned a car in my life and I don't have a license but this hasn't stopped any of these people from being average car owners...
your hobby is giving me tinnitus and is infringing upon mine
Ha! Not a chance. My car is totally stock and doesn't produce anywhere near the levels of sound pressure to damage hearing. Not even close, dude.
And I have my dashcam videos of bicycles behaving badly too.
Tinnitus is affected by constant exposure, not just dB. Cars make noise and a constant low droning sound gives you tinnitus as well.
I, too, have videos of bicycles behaving poorly. Again, cognitive dissonance; we are not discussing bicycles.
As a former sound engineer, I am well aware of the dangers of volume and exposure limits.
If a liesurly drive way in the mountains gives you hearing damage, your bigger concern is why you're being dragged behind a car.
As a current employee of the municipal road maintenance and service depot, I'd like to think we have more relevant data than a sound engineer on the harm caused by road noise.
https://www.eea.europa.eu/highlights/road-traffic-remains-biggest-source
Where I live we don't even have sidewalks on most roads, so that would be a start.
Honestly though? Great public transit. I really miss living somewhere that allowed me to be car free because the transit was pretty good. Not even great, but just pretty good. Something like Singapore public transit would be great.
In Japan, car owners are responsible for ensuring they have somewhere to park. Municipalities don’t provide free on-street car storage, or even much in the way of paid parking, so if you really want a car, you’ll need to sacrifice some space to store it, or make other private arrangements at your own expense. You’ll need proof of this when you buy a car.
Singapore goes one step further, with car owners needing to purchase a licence for keeping a car (which is separate from a driver’s license). This costs about as much as the car itself. Though by some accounts, this has made having even a mediocre car into a status symbol.
Towns and cities should restructure more to a self sustainable way, so people don't have to travel as far as often.
My personal example is that I live in a very bicycle friendly city, but at the same time we don't have a bicycle shop anymore to buy tires and chains and shit..
We need a bike shop here!
Not much you can do without them reacting the opposing way.
One solution is for example 15 minute cities. I've never felt like I wanted a car living in Montréal because it's literally faster and more convenient to just walk there. I rarely even needed to use the metro. Genuinely healthier way of life.
And then the F350 owners all go that's just the first step, they won't allow you to go outside of your city, blah blah blah.
The thing is it's been drilled into so many people's heads that a car is essential that everything that deviates from driving your car wherever you go is seen as a direct attack on personal freedoms, your right to go wherever you want and all that.
People also seem to rely a lot on their cars as a status symbol. Look, I'm broke AF but I got a brand new giant boat of an SUV... to go work in an office on a computer everyday. So many trucks have perfect mint condition never used truck beds. But you gotta have a truck to show you're a hard working manly man.
There's nothing you can do to change those people. They'll make a F950 and run it coal just to spite you. We'll be stuck with the status quo as long as egocentric people exist. Because you can't inconvenience them for the sake of others, they don't give a shit about anyone but themselves.
I don't think there is a "best way" - but increasing costs is one way. Singapore is an example of this - you have pay up 106K SGD for the COE (certificate of entitlement) to even be allowed to own a car.
This punishes the poor in rural areas. Unless you are referring to only cities that will also be improving mass transit at the same time, increasing costs has only downsides.
Reframing reducing subsidies as increasing costs is what makes people hate the idea. Gradually reducing incentives to drive would give people plenty of time to transition to other lifestyles.
I was offering an example. In Singapore it works because it's a tiny country with stable mass transit. Definitely not a model that works in countries with more land.
