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this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2023
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Because as much as trains and buses are great for everyday commuter movement (and having amenities within walking distance is key as well), there's two issues:
That’s what rentals are for. Yeah, there’s always going to be a need for low volume cargo transport and emergency response, but ultimately building cities so 90% of trips can be easily and comfortably accomplished via mass transit should be the goal. Nobody is suggesting transit can replace all cars.
The image in the post is of a yogi of some sort stating that electric cars are here to save the car industry first, and my impression of it is that it's suggesting that exploring the idea of electric cars is unwise.
And hell yeah, efficient transit and walkable cities are the goal. But while we're working on that goal, we should also focus on electrifying cars! Tackle the crisis in multiple ways. Because there's no way we're gonna stop using cars overnight, and if we can make cars more environmentally friendly while we taper off of them, that's a win.
Yes. If we had infinite money, infinite time, and the ability to put people into stasis while we tear up entire cities to retrofit them for a train system... that still wouldn't solve the problem.
If you live in a city, you are done. If you live on the outskirts of a city? Your life gets a lot less convenient, but you are good. Maybe a train runs from your "town" to the center of the city once or twice an hour. Cool.
If you live in a town an hour away? Nobody is running trains to a podunk mountain town or whatever. And even in some of the most public transit friendly countries on Earth (like Japan), it is a mess of bus and train connections where one or two significant delays can leave you stranded for the night.
And as an aside: holy crap do buses suck. They are the worst of all worlds. Almost universally poorly maintained. A driver who is constantly on the verge of losing their mind. Stuck in traffic. Prone to skipped stops and unannounced route changes. And again, that is even in civilized countries.
And I am definitely not renting a car whenever I need to go into town to hit up the Target or catch a plane. If only because rental companies tend to not like low volume out of the way locations that just result in cars not receiving maintenance. We have interns that come out every year and a lot of them realize that they need to drive an hour away just to pick up and drop off a rental...
Don't get me wrong. I think a massive effort to make public transportation more viable is needed. But, regardless of what that rich guy with a cycling youtube channel constantly screams, we aren't getting rid of personal vehicles until the entire planet is one interconnected megacity. And even then, it is just going to screw over the people who aren't fortunate enough to live close to a transit stop.
EDIT: Just as a few examples of even places with good public transit being a mess the moment you get away from the city center and the touristy bits.
Better part of a decade ago, I was in the London area of the UK for a couple months. I stayed in a town about 50 miles outside of London proper, but getting into the city was generally a 20 minute train ride to Paddington and trains left a couple times an hour. It was amazing and I loved it. And then I started dating a girl who lived in (if memory serves) Kensington or Hammersmith or one of them. About 3 or 5 miles away from "London" proper, but she basically had the exact same commute. Minimal lines went to where she lived and the stops required meant she also started her weekends with a 20 minute train ride to Paddington and then... And that just broke my brain
And, more recently, I spent a few weeks in Tokyo. I stayed on the outskirts of Kabukicho because it was cheap and in the city center (and later I would learn WHY it was cheap AND start the Yakuza/LAD series with a love of Kamurocho). Trains were perfect and I could basically get anywhere at any time with very minimal commuting hassle.
Until I wanted to go on a tour of a sake distillery out in Ome. Outskirts of the tokyo megacity and, if all went according to plan, about an hour and a half by train with two-ish connections (been a couple years). And I remember needing to piss like my life depended on it after drinking WAY too much sake, making my way back to the train station and having to:
And that was all to go from a very touristy part of town to a very touristy destination. Albeit, I might have done a better job of making that connection if I hadn't been day drinking for an hour or two by that point. But just pretend I am a responsible adult and was wrangling children or something.
And that is the thing. Walkable cities are AMAZING and everyone should strive for those. But unless you are rich enough to live in the city center, you are still going to deal with a lot of headaches.
Cars haven't existed forever and we managed to build places around them. There's no reason we can't start building everything new around other modes of transport.
I live in Switzerland, and none of the problems you mention in the next few paragraphs exist here. I mean frequency of public transport isn't as good out of the cities, but I can get a bus or train to pretty much anywhere a car can get to, and some places they can't. The buses are nice and work well, they have priority in the city so they don't get stuck in traffic. I can get train, tram, bus, or bike to the airport no problem and if I need something bigger than I can carry I'll just get it delivered. Yes Switzerland is rich but there's a lot of money to be saved if it wasn't being spent on cars, car infrastructure, and all of the externalities of driving. It's also small, but our trains don't go particularly quickly.
Even then, the vast majority of people in developed countries (and the majority worldwide) live in urban areas. If the people living in podunk towns need to drive, power to them. Focusing on urban areas will have a bigger impact.
And the alternative is being rich enough to afford a house in the suburbs AND a car for every member of the family? Walkable doesn't have to mean the city centre, and it's much easier to achieve if you don't have to kowtow to a bunch of suburbanites who want to drive their SUVs through your neighbourhood.
First: Your baseline is Switzerland? The 6th highest GDP per Capita (how the hell is Ireland 5th?!?!?!) which ranks 132nd for area.
Again, if you live in Tokyo or even freaking New York City (arguably all of New York+New Jersey but upstate NY is REAL republican), you are more or less good. You might be a bit inconvenienced if you don't live near a rail station, but you'll probably be looking at a 20-30 minute pre-commute.
The point is that once you have a larger land mass with people who live out in the sticks? Because
Second: Please, kindly, fuck off with the mindset that it is all rich suburbanites who are the problem. Don't get me wrong, the suburbs are very much a massive problem. But that falls into that "twenty minutes to get into town" category I mentioned above... assuming we have the infrastructure.
The issue is actual poor people. No, not the rich guy making youtube videos about how all cities should be 100% bike friendly. No, not the kids in college who are starving artists who live off mommy and daddy sending checks every week. The issue is people in actual small towns. People who, generally, are actually pretty poor. There aren't going to be regular trains that end up at their front door and even buses might do one route a day. It becomes a complete shitshow to get in or out. And that is where EVs really shine because you can having to "drive their SUVs through your neighborhood" and instead have a relatively clean personal vehicle to do supply runs.
Anime, but I strongly encourage watching... basically anything by Makoto Shinkai but especially Your Name or 5 Centimeters per Second. He very much loves to depict what it takes to get from The City (almost always Tokyo) to the sticks. Lots of trains, lots of buses, tight connections, and sometimes nights spent in an inn in the middle of nowhere. Which contrasts well with the regular push by certain youtubers to, ironically, encourage even more of a "small town" mindset by insisting that everyone should have everything they will ever need within a few square miles of their home. Because walkable cities are AMAZING. But we aren't there yet and, arguably never should be, for the purpose of rural communities that are surrounded by nature.
Please read my entire comment, I addressed this already.
The vast majority of people in developed countries live in urban areas, so for the vast majority of people that drive, this isn't an issue. It is the rich suburbanites who are driving into cities.
Actual poor people are the ones who benefit the most from better infrastructure. Public transport is a lifeline for the homeless, and access to it is the biggest factor in whether they will be able to escape homelessness. Owning a car is really expensive, and The burdens of vehicle dependency fall disproportionately on marginalized people, especially those who are low-income and those who are Black.