I really hate driving but it takes me 30 min to drive somewhere where public transportation takes me 2 hours. Driving saves me 3 hours a day.
If public transportation was good, I wouldn't drive.
That is exactly the point of this meme. The resource allocation for building car infrastructure has been massive since the '60s while transit has been left behind as it is way less of a oppurtunity for car manufacturers and oil companies to profit from it and yeah, they do have a saying bigger than yours when it comes to deciding your country's politics. (See ~~corruption~~lobbying)
But it means rebuilding cities. We should absolutely do it, but entirely reworking how everyone gets around is gonna take a while even best case scenario. But that's why we should get started now!
We already bulldozed and rebuilt our cities for the car, so there's certainly no reason we can't do it again. It should be easier this time, though, as the main things we have to demolish are parking lots and stroads, not entire city blocks of dense housing. See Cincinnati below:
Legalized bribery.
From my interpretation, this meme suggests we should just stop building cars. The fact we are buying so many cars is just a testament on how bad public transportation is. Even with traffic I still manage to get 1 hour and half faster than public transportation by train + subway.
I wish the solution was as simples as a resource redirection, but unfortunately it would require some city planning and possibly rebuilding around public transportation. Not gonna happen, I guess.
It would require those things and time, yes. I don't think anyone is suggesting public transit in the US would be viable overnight.
In an alternate world you’d complain cars can never work because there isn’t enough space for them on roads, and there’s never any parking when you arrive. (Oh, and accidents)
I hate driving because of everything you just said!
Welcome to Fuck Cars!
It's a dead-simple concept that can be applied to everything: public money should only be used for public services. If the private sector is viable, it shouldn't need public money to prop it up.
Public money should fund public transit. No public money for private transport infrastructure.
Public money should fund public schools. No public subsidies for charter and private schools.
Public money should fund public health care. No public funding should be wasted on propping up a wasteful private healthcare industry. ACA wastes so much money buying insurance for people when we could just build public hospitals and public clinics.
It's not that private industry shouldn't exist. It's just that private industry, conceptually, shouldn't need to be propped up by social funding. But currently it is. And it's a tremendous waste of money. Public money should only fund public programs. So simple.
Aren't bike lanes technically "private transport infrastructure" though?
As long as you can use it to walk/reduced mobility on, no. That allows everyone to use it.
Because planned economies are a terrible idea. We would be doing this efficiently and organically if the demand for bikes and public transportation was higher and the demand for cars was lower.
Why don’t we uproot all our vegetable crops and grow cherry trees? Cherries are delicious so this is obviously a great idea!
The only reason you have food on your plate is because economies adjust incrementally from the ground up, not all at once from the top down.
Here comes the guy with the degree in economics and a lot of free time lmfao. It must be really difficult to misunderstand such a simple meme but here, I will help you out: MAYBE the spendings our governements "plan" (uuuh scary buzz word) on: car infrastructure (go check how much your country spends on it), gas tax cuts, road maintenance, healthcare costs related to car accidents (you don't obviously "plan" those but they are nonetheless a cost for a society), just MAYBE, they could be decresed in favor of public transportation? Cycling infrastructure?
"BuT tHe dEmAnD fOr CarS iS sO hIgh!!1!1 LeT tHe fReE mArKet ChOoSe wHaT pEoPlE wAnT."
Nice free market you got there when outside its all roads and parking lots (tax-paid), with no sidewalks/cycleways, and the only bus/train going to where you need to has a ride every 6 hours. Im sure people will buy a car to get around because they love it so much.
Why don’t we uproot all our ~~vegetable crops~~modes of transportation and grow car trees? Cars are delicious so this is obviously a great idea!
I also have a degree in economics (and computer science, fwiw). We agree that the incentive structures in the United States are fucked up. I was just answering the question in the meme with regards to manufacturing decisions and how/why they’re made. Discontinuing our perverse car-centric subsidy schemes would be a great way to steer demand and supply away from cars.
Demand for public transport will not increase because it continues to be underfunded.
Under-founds public transportation until all that's left is a old dirty bus going in along a useless route every 6 hours. Builds massive highways, parking lots and roads that make it "easy" to drive and impossible to walk or cycle, cuts gas taxes. WOAH GUYS, people are buying cars because they love them! We should give them more funding and keep de-funding transit projects
What we have is a transportation economy that's been planned by car companies. From demonizing "Jay Walkers", to buying trolley companies to shut them down.
Even today, where small trucks stop being produced in order to avoid emission restrictions. Along with marketing, that falsely claims improved safety of the larger, more expensive, more profitable large trucks.
Whenever a market is dominated by a small enough group of companies, they start planning how it will work.
That's a horrendous comparison. You could have had an arguable point if other countries weren't already doing it.
Source: trust me bro!
We live in an economy that is heavily distorted by things like car centered infrastructure, price fixing, cartels, industry lobbying, corruption and advertising among other things. Considering this makes your statement naive at best.
If you uproot an old failing oak without plans to plant something in its absence, you’ll be left with a big hole and no shade.
Edit: Maybe I’m agreeing with some of what was said and I’m misunderstood. Either way, I agree with understanding demand as it relates to a planned economy.
This is a problem with some poorly executed pedestrianisation/walkable area conversions IMO.
I like it since it means more car free spaces for me and my 🚲, but those without a bike aren't going to wait around a hour for a bus, they'll hop in their car and drive to an alternative location. They might not even be familiar with bike paths and routes to get there, especially if they're not comfortable riding on the road.
When car-first infrastructure is ripped out, people need to be introduced to alternatives and the alternatives need to be attractive, otherwise the status-quo will shift elsewhere
I work for an auto company. I can tell you they don't want mass transit because it hurts profits. They would much rather jack up the cost of vehicles, offer deals on leases, and keep people locked into getting a new vehicle every few years. Just keep the machine running and fuck anything except their profits. You will see how shady the auto industry is once the strike happens next week
Because bikes are a way too efficient (on the short distances) and long lasting products to be lucrative. Public transportation as well didn't guarantee the same annual income of fresh money that the car market do.
I like the concept of 15 minute cities/suburbs. You can get anywhere you need within 15 minutes, whether by public transport, bike, walking or car.
Isn't the point of a 15 minute city that you can get anywhere within 15 minutes without a car?
(By the way, from a European standpoint it sounds really funny that 15 minute cities are not a reality for you. Like, why would you ever build a city differently in the first place?)
It's pretty disingenuous to claim that your city founded in 1300 has tight streets and isn't car-friendly because people in 1300 were really big on public transport.
And the answer is that cities grow descriptively rather than prescriptively. They generally add what is in demand/what they need piecemeal, and most US cities really grew in the 20th century.
That's why NYC, for example, has significantly better public transport than most of the nation - it's one of the oldest cities
This is also why moving to mass transit is a hard sell. It's expensive and there is less demonstrated need and more forethought behind the switchover.
There’s an few distinctions about American culture as it relates to car culture.
America had/has a lot of land
Much of this is/was vastly underdeveloped right outside of urban hubs, unlike Europe/related which benefits from a tighter interconnected network of cities that more immediately benefit from mass transit systems
In the US post-WWII middle class and privileged were often sold an idea of peaceful suburban lifestyles away from urbanized areas
Car manufacturers marketed this successfully as a way to encourage families away from city life and thus build a more solid reliance on their vehicles
City planning was therefore often built around a suburban-city sprawl rather than a cohesive urban community designed around efficiency
Like, why would you ever build a city differently in the first place?
Exactly. Unfortunately, in Australia, we tend to borrow stupid ideas from the US to make money and have sprawling suburbs with zero amenity.
For instance, we had a new suburbian development within 20km from the CBD with the promise of schools, community centres etc. in the early 2000s. When all the houses were bought and built, suddenly there's no money for amenities so they just sold the land to developers who then put more houses in. Now the only way to get anything you need is by car because there's no train or buses because it was supposed to be accessible by bike/walking but now isn't. And not to mention gridlock of vehicles looking to get out of the suburbs for food etc. out of the one intersection provided.
I would love 15min cities without cars for my country but the attitude to cars here is similar to the attitude about guns in the US.
I got an ebike and rode 130 miles (note my ebike is 250w and geared) on the trail that I live near. Haven't taken it out since last month because they started construction (resurfacing+replacing 2 bridges) that will last until next year.
I'm in a small town and the construction blocks both ways (meanwhile, the road alternative is often unshaded with grass/ditches on the sides, with at least one last-section I was on a few times before to get to another house having 40mph (though sparse) traffic). The trail made further journeys possible without complex navigation (and I'm not aware of many closer destinations due to the rurality).
Also my town has a railroad but no train-station (so no passenger rail) so I guess it's rather fitting. Although at least the trail is getting fixed (also the trail used to be a rail).
This is a perfectly fitting example if you think what would instead happen if instead there were needed to be done construction on the road (they would do half lane at the time to allow traffic, or they would only work at night and reopen the road for the day, ft. Your tax money going to construction workers night shifts). As long as car drivers are seen as special requirements kids its always going to be made artificially easier to drive rather than commuting in other ways.
Just to be clear, my point (aside from that being rural sucks for transportation+there was only 1 option in this situation) is that the problem is infrastructure and planning rather than the vehicles themselves.
EDIT: And yeah, I don't know why they didn't split the job up into at least 2. [A to B] and [B to C] rather than [A-C] (and more sections could've probably been done when it comes to the resurfacing). Seems as if this were a sudden change after delays too.
Yeah but how are we supposed to capture an entire nation of consumers and entrap them into paying for our products forever with that?
You would need much less material and that's bad for economy.
Or to reframe it: the economy is bad for the environment.
Even if we kept the car way of life (not saying we should) doesn't it seem like there are way too many cars being produced? Like how many new cars do we really need every year? I honestly do not know the numbers, I'm just saying it sure seems like this many brand new cars don't need to exist.
This is awesome because the point of this meme template is that Patrick has bad ideas, just like how divesting totally from cars in the US is a bad idea.
no it means that even somebody as stupid as patrick understand that cars are stupid
Have any of you tried getting 3 kids around town with public transport? 10 minutes of kids songs in the car = 45 minutes of screaming and accusatory stares in the bus.
A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!
1. Be Civil
You may not agree on ideas, but please do not be needlessly rude or insulting to other people in this community.
2. No hate speech
Don't discriminate or disparage people on the basis of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or sexuality.
3. Don't harass people
Don't follow people you disagree with into multiple threads or into PMs to insult, disparage, or otherwise attack them. And certainly don't doxx any non-public figures.
4. Stay on topic
This community is about cars, their externalities in society, car-dependency, and solutions to these.
5. No reposts
Do not repost content that has already been posted in this community.
Moderator discretion will be used to judge reports with regard to the above rules.
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:
