this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
803 points (93.4% liked)

Fuck Cars

9389 readers
1053 users here now

A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!

Rules

1. Be CivilYou may not agree on ideas, but please do not be needlessly rude or insulting to other people in this community.

2. No hate speechDon't discriminate or disparage people on the basis of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or sexuality.

3. Don't harass peopleDon'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 topicThis community is about cars, their externalities in society, car-dependency, and solutions to these.

5. No repostsDo 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.

Posting Guidelines

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:

Recommended communities:

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] gowan@reddthat.com 4 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Because not everyone does or can live in a city? That e-bike would be crazy impractical for my buddy who lives on a mountain in rural WV.

Not everyone lives in your circumstances.

[–] dreugeworst@lemmy.ml 21 points 1 year ago

that's an argument to talk about electric cars at least some of the time, not to exclusively talk about them at the expense of any other transportation option. According to US government statistics, people in rural areas make up about 15% of the population, why is their situation dictating the national conversation around clean transportation?

[–] Redex68@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As the other people mentioned. In North America, the percentage of urban populations is 85%, Latin America 81%, Europe 75%

Yes, rural areas are probably in need of private vehicles, but not everyone out of those 85-75% of people need a car. We've become too reliant on them.

[–] yopla@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Those stats are a bit misleading. For example, I live in a "urban" environnement, aka a town, but the closest anything is still 15km away.

[–] Redex68@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Fair point, but I still think it holds true for > 50% of people. That is still a huge percentage and the rest of the people that would need vehicles wouldn't need such destructive infrastructure in the middle of cities. Cities could be a lot more compact, walkable and without 15 lane highways running through the middle. The vast majority of traffic in cities is caused by people who could replace that with public transport or walking in a better planned city.

Now America is a lot more problematic there because of suburbanisation, idk how you fix that at this point, but I hope that it's possible.

[–] elscallr@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

I don't think you do "fix" suburbanization because people who live in suburbs probably want to live in suburbs. Not everyone wants to be in a dense city, for me that sounds like hell.

[–] HaywardT@lemmy.sdf.org -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What is an anything in your mind

[–] yopla@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What we do have at a walking/biking distance is a bakery, a pharmacy, a coffee shop, an antique store, two art galleries.

Anything else such as food, school, work, train station, doctor, veterinary, you name it, is 15k away.

[–] HardlightCereal@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It sounds like your town needs a tram station

[–] yopla@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Not really, trams are only good if you need more capacity than a bus can provide on a fixed line which is not the case. What we need is exactly the opposite, a small capacity and a flexible route.

The thing that has the most chance to work in the near future, from a practicality and cost point of view is, imho, a fleet of on demand self driving electric minibus that can serve all the township around.

Note, we already have on-demand minibus, it's basically a bus with fixed stop in all the local towns that only come if requested and available, It's just not very available due to a shortage of drivers.

[–] Squirrel@thelemmy.club 12 points 1 year ago

However, those who do live in those circumstances would find such things useful. It's okay for something to benefit less than 100% of the population.

[–] Hazdaz@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There is no place for logic on this sub!

Only endless complaining and pretending that everyone has the exact same situation. And god forbid we have choice too.

I'll take mass transit if it is convenient, I'll hop on my electric bike when I want, but I also will take a gasoline car or electric car if it makes more sense to do that or if I simply want to go cruise around for a bit.

[–] HaywardT@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It sounds like you think the only solution is one that works for every situation. "We all must have helicopters because that is the only way into my volcano lair."

[–] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Strawman argument. Try living outside of the dense urban bubble.

[–] HaywardT@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Dude. I have lived on a sailboat, a powerboat, a tent, a sleeping bag, a highrise penthouse and more. It's not a straw man. I am calling out your argument not making a new one. Stop playing to the camera.

[–] Stovetop@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago

Careful, your privilege is showing.

[–] HardlightCereal@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So nobody lived on that mountain before cars were invented?

[–] gowan@reddthat.com 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Should people return to premodern life because you don't feel they should enjoy the quality of life you have because they do not live in a city?

[–] HardlightCereal@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They should return to premodern life if it's the only way to avoid climate collapse and the end of human civilization. Going back to the industrial age is better than being sent back to the stone age.

Fortunately, we don't have to do either, because there are safe, clean, modern solutions to transit.

[–] gowan@reddthat.com 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So others should have a lower quality of life so yours can be preserved. That's a great outlook. Im sure you'll be quite successful convincing others to do this.

[–] HardlightCereal@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago

EVERYONE is going to DIE if the climate collapses.