Image transcript:
The "what if you wanted to go to heaven, but god said ____" meme template, but here it says, "What if you wanted to walk to get groceries, but city planners said DRIVE". The last panel is an image of a massive freeway full of cars.
This what I never understood.
Where I lived, in high school (age 15-16) everyone was expected to get a license and car ASAP. I was like, why? To get to your job. For what? To earn money to pay for the car, gas, insurance, etc.
So you want me to work a job I don't need to pay for the gas for a car I don't want, so I can be miserable in school?!
And if you looked at the driving records of my peers who had cars... Not pretty. A lot of totalled sports cars.
I get you. I used to go to school with bike. Its a 30-40 min journey in one way. That was the best time in my life. I liked to see the sunrise, fell the wind, goig anywhere I want. I don't want a car too much stuff.
I see the carbrains have found this post
I don't even follow this community, but it was top in top-6 hour
I cant imagine feeling the need to get angry over people wishing for a car free life.
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And more! Have fun
It isn't a proper lemmy comment section yet, there has yet to be someone blaming the issue on capitalism
Also missing someone talking about Linux
Here, now it's a proper lemmy thread:
The key is blaming it on capitalism, but not allowing any amount of nuance
You can replace "lemmy" with "the internet" in your comment and it'd still be correct.
I hate the way people drive here but I am at least able to walk to the grocery store. It's right across the street.
Hello, interested in life without cars but not knowledgeable. How do you transport groceries? I buy in bulk and sometimes have boxes of things, not sure how I’d get that stuff home without a moving trunk
A few ideas, which may or may not work out for any given situation:
For reference, I live in a country with decently well designed urban environments, and my nearest grocery store is less than 200m away by foot. I could just do all of my shopping there, but it's a bit more expensive, so I bike to a cheaper store that is 3.5km away, taking me less than 10 minutes. There I fill up a basket and maybe a pannier, which gets us enough groceries to last for a week or so.
If I need to transport anything larger, I primarily look to have it delivered, or as a last resort, I rent a car. Renting a car is almost never necessary, though.
Hey!
I can answer this pretty well as I grew up and lived in a pretty car dependant Minneapolis until I was 23, where then I moved to NYC with no car in 2018 and have lived here ever since.
The TL;DR to this question is that you transport everything in a grocery bag on person, but the longer answer is that your buying and cooking behavior changes.
Back in Minneapolis I relied on buying in bulk, since I wanted to limit the number of trips in the 15-20 min drive between my apt and the Costco. Variability with the weather affected this too, as I would buy extra if it was in the winter time. I'd make this trip by car around 2-3 times a month. This also affected my buying and cooking decision making as well. Buying groceries first then figuring out what I wanted to cook.
Once I moved to NYC, I would always have a grocery store several blocks away from me. At most being a short 5-10 min walk. This changed my habits as I always had a grocery store I could quickly pop in without having to think about traffic, my car, etc. So although I would go more frequently (~ 2 times a week), I would also find this a lot easier and would buy less.
Nowadays, whenever I think of wanting to cook something, I either head over to the store on my way back to the office, after the gym, etc. and then cook that very same day what I bought.
In my mind, that big fridge I used to restock with my Costco runs has been replaced by having that quick grocery store within walking distance.
Purely anecdotal, since I know some other people in the US may be living different than a single guy living in an apt in NYC, but this is also how it is in many cities I've traveled to in Asia and Europe.
I miss NYC for this reason alone, among a few other reasons. I used to walk and bike everywhere, didn't even need the MTA.
Thanks for the in depth answer! This has me wondering whether I can live without a car here in the bay already, but our infrastructure is not nearly as good as NYC’s. Anecdotally, things here are a lot more compact than Texas so I do find myself going out more for smaller trips anyway.
Curious, did buying groceries more end up costing more?
Public transport, cargo bike, walk/public transit to go & taxi to come back, buy smaller quantities more often...
It really depends on where you live, the infrastructure and transit available to you, and any other circumstantial factors.
First off, a big part of what !fuckcars@lemmy.world wants to fix is the problem that many communities are simply designed with the assumption that everyone will drive everywhere, which often means most people aren't within walking distance of shops (because it's literally illegal to build grocery stores in many residential areas). It also often means very shoddy pedestrian infrastructure, sketchy (if even existing at all) bike infrastructure, and little to no public transit.
If you live within walking distance of a grocery store, you're in luck! Something like a granny cart (pictured below) can allow you take pretty heavy loads of groceries on foot.
If it's too far to walk but you have decent bike lanes or paths that you feel comfortable riding on, you can attach pannier bags and/or crates to a bike (an e-bike makes it even easier) to carry pretty big grocery hauls home.
If neither walking nor biking are options but public transit is, you can take a granny cart on the bus or train easily as well. Of course, a limitation is none of these three options can take nearly as big a haul in one trip as a car can, but the idea is you can make smaller, more frequent trips. For example, I live a 5-minute walk from the nearest grocery store, so I can pop on over a couple times a week to get a few items, which is light enough to carry. Of course, if you need to feed multiple people and it's a kind of long, onerous journey to get groceries by foot/bike/transit, this might no longer be feasible, unfortunately.
If none of those are feasible, there's no shame in having to use a car. The villain here is the system that forces people to drive even if they'd prefer not to, not the people being force by circumstance to drive.
The thing with walkable urbanized area is that you don't have to buy in bulk for groceries, because a grocery stores are just minutes away from home. I myself shop in a traditional market which is only 5 minutes bicycle ride away from home. Plus there are many convenience stores within 1km radius.
When the store is walkable, your bulk buying turns into one bulk item that you walk to and get.
Basically its the same way you get something bulk from your trunk into your house. Which is probably your hands and arms.
As someone who experiences pain while walking essentially any distance over 100m, I don't want to walk for my groceries. But it's nice to have a store nearby. I really want an e-bike, but since I need a car and am already forced to pay for one, I can't really afford to have both.
Think how awesome your drive would be if everyone else walked!
Yeah, walking definitely isn't suitable for everyone. What we need is dense communities with layered and diverse transit options. High walkability, abundant protected bike infrastructure, and accessible mass and local transit.
Just curious: what about a normal bike? Is the distance too big or does it also hurt?
ohhhh, now I finally understand why people complain in Germany each time the gov plans to build a highway
Counterpoint: having a working car makes a human being have vastly more freedom to travel than not having a car.
Having a car means you can drive to anywhere that roads on your continent lead to, and even to places that don't have roads if your car is off-road capable. Without a car, you have to hire transport to get to anywhere you can't get to by your human body power.
I would never live without a car unless it was physically impossible. Law banning cars would not stop me, I would build my own fucking car if I had to.
You're arguing for having a car in a thread about needing a car
It's not about banning cars, it's about designing places to make them not necessary
Where I live you can walk to the local shops
Loads of people drive, but you don't have to. This is good.
Exactly. There's a pattern I've noticed of people interpreting "car dependency reduces freedom" as "car ownership reduces freedom". But the point you, I, and many others are trying to make is that building our cities in such a way that no one has a choice but to drive everywhere is counter to the idea of freedom.
Freedom is the freedom to choose how you want to get about your city and not be coerced into owning and maintaining a (rather expensive) vehicle just to get groceries. People want choices.
People interpret it that way because the community is called "fuck cars" and some users are very toxic and don't present the nuances very well.
A lot of people support better public transportation. But nobody is being won over to the movement with antagonism and name calling.
There's some good discussions too, I get it, but it's no surprise that misunderstanding occurs.
*had a car to drive anywhere*
*drives to the same 3 spots 99% of the time*
Explain that.
I mean... I live in a 3 mile town. It's cold as fuck, I live North of a town called North fucking Pole.
I ain't walking for shit, sorry but my car is on half an hour before I even use the damn thing.
You want to fix infrastructure of America, cool. Maybe you'd get my vote. But these memes feel like bs marketing that simply does not apply to our current situation.
You need a fucking sled dog team, not a car.
More to the point, your experiences are so vastly far from the worldwide norm that frankly, your opinions on this topic simply don't matter. Sorry.
That's a very different experience then I had living in the cold as fuck.
When I was in Yellowknife, it was easier to walk or bike than to drive. Between plug time and idle time, you could just walk or bike faster. Plus you're not spending a fortune on hydro and gas for a short drive.
I mean, obviously Yellowknife is a pretty big city for the north; but if it's a 3 mi town then nowhere is more than a 40 minute walk or 15 minute bike away. If 3 mi town is an expression and not a size, maybe just take your sled?
Also a big part of me being in the north was embracing nature and the elements, I get that might not be why you're up there.
Finally, you're the 20 of the Pareto principle; if it's not about you, it's not about you.
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